Nevermore
by TheJesusFreak777
Summary: Gale Hawthorne wants nothing to do with District 12. But when he's finally forced to return to his homeland, will his entire life crumble away when he confronts old ghosts?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Ayo. I'm redoing this fic that I did a while ago, because I realized I could do it ten times better (hopefully) than it was originally. Reviews, suggestions, and constructive criticism are appreciated.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

**Gale Hawthorne**

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><p><em>"This town is colder now, I think it's sick of us<em>  
><em>It's time to make our move, I'm shaking off the rust<em>  
><em>I've got my heart set on anywhere but here<em>  
><em>I'm staring down myself, counting up the years<em>  
><em>Steady hands, just take the wheel...<em>  
><em>And every glance is killing me<em>  
><em>Time to make one last appeal... for the life I lead."<em>

_-Stop and Stare, OneRepublic _

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><p>Love. How did I find it? There were always girls back in 12 who were crazy about me, back before the rebellion. Then there was Katniss. Even now when I think about her, lying in bed beside another woman, my heart melts. If I could see those gray eyes again. If I could hold her face in my hands one more time. If I could go hunting with her behind the Seam, when everything was normal and I didn't have to go to the mines. But now she had Peeta, and she was happy with him. I felt the grudge with in me harden when I think of him, but it's not how it used to be, when they got married and did the toasting and I wasn't informed. I can't say I blame her now.<p>

Time ticks by. I count the seconds that gradually slip into minutes, and when I look at the clock again, half an hour has passed since I opened my eyes. I don't blink. I just stare up at the whitewashed ceiling and sigh. The sun will be up soon. It's time to start another day in District 2.

I'd been here for five years now, six long years away from Katniss. In those years, 2 had changed a lot, but it would be decades before the district was ever really stable again. But since then, since I first moved here, I'd met her. And I had a job now, one that didn't involve mine shafts and suffocating darkness, one that I enjoyed. I worked, and that was it. Criminology, mostly. And I have Oline now. Oline Roberts. She's a sweetheart. I'm not sure if she loves me, but I love her. I'm crazy about her. We aren't married. Not yet, anyway. But maybe soon, when I know that she loves me.

And I have Ezra now. He rarely comes by-he's a busy guy, what with the kids and Sabille expecting again and his work and life and his affairs-but it was Ezra. He's always a busy guy. He's only twenty-five, and already the best at work. He and I are the ones who track criminals, normally. They were usually former Capitol politicians on the run from their trials. He used to be a Peacekeeper. He once tracked a man seventy-three miles through the wilderness surrounding District 2, put a bullet in his chest, and then kept him alive long enough to take back for his trial and execution, an execution Ezra had been in charge of. He loved his job. He was a sociopath.

The sun was rising outside on the horizon, shining through the large windows of Oline's bedroom. She must not be working today at the university.

She taught classes at the university, in mathematics. Trig, I think. Something I had never learned, on the lines of trig, anyway. She was around the same age as most of her students. I had gone to pick her up after I'd gotten off early one day. I'd stepped inside of her room, an amphitheater-type room with maybe a hundred seats and half as many students. I'd stayed in the back of the room, by the door, and listened as she explained some complicated math equations to a struggling student. When she had at last looked up, her gaze fell on me in the back and she had lost her train of concentration, and a smile had bloomed across her face. Since then I hadn't gone back into her class, out of fear it would get her in trouble and her pay would be docked.

It's one of the six universities in Panem. They're in the larger districts that still have a sustaining population. The Capitol had one, as do 1, 2, 5, 11, and 13. Oline has several students from 12 and 8 and the districts without universities. But most of her students are from 2.

The university is at the old training center for the Careers, with several new buildings on the campus. There were the names of all the district's victors on a bronze plate outside of the main office, along with all the tributes from District 2 ever. All one hundred fifty tributes. They didn't write for the last year of the Games. Just 1 through 74, and the four tributes who had come on the second Quarter Quell. Once I was bored before picking up Oline and had went to stare at the list. Clove, Cato, Lyme, Enobaria, and Brutus. Those were the only familiar ones to me. But Oline recognized nearly all of them, being a District 2 native her entire life. Her own father had been the Victor of the 46th Games. They were just names to me, and I'm sure their faces would be just that to me-faces. Enobaria lived somewhere in the district, but the last time I'd seen her in person had been when she'd been buying drugs off of someone in the market in town. That had been a year ago.

I get out of bed and change. Nice suit, nice tie, nice shoes. My mother had pitched in to buy me clothes for work one Christmas.

When I'm ready for work, I duck back into the bedroom and glance at the clock. I kiss Oline on the forehead. "Oline," I say lightly, "I'm about to leave."

She stirs and opens her eyes drowsily. They're dark green, like the forest. That was what had first made me notice her. Those eyes reminded me of when I'd been in 12, in the forest, hunting with Katniss. Rory had been visiting, on his twenty-first birthday, when he'd stayed up here for a few weeks. It had been seven months ago, and we'd went to a bar. Rory could pass for my age. He was all grown up, more grown up than I had ever been. Back when we still lived in District 12, before the rebellion, I'd wanted better than for him to work in the mines and take out tesserae to live. Ironically, I had a better job than the majority of Panem now, and I still sent them money every paycheck, and he still works in the mines. At the time I'd been living in a small apartment that overlooked the market, which was one of the worst parts of our town in 2.

"How's Mom?" I had asked Rory.

"Hazelle's fine," he answered briskly, and it surprised me that he referred to her as "Hazelle."

"Vick and Posy?"

"They're good. Vick's sixteen now and Posy's thirteen."

"Jesus. I haven't seen them in years."

"You should come down," Rory said.

I shrugged. "Work, you know," I said. "Speaking of which, is there plenty of work in 12?"

He shrugged. "Hazelle sews mostly." There it was again. Hazelle. "A lot of jobs in construction, obviously, and the mines, still. The black market is thriving, if that qualifies as work. Vick does odd jobs in the summer-he's not old enough for the mines. Thom builds houses-he built ours, it's nicer than anything we could ever afford. Posy and I go hunting a lot, we sell our catches at the Hob."

"Is she good?"

"She's a great shot. Got a good ear for it, too."

"That's good. Got a girl down there?"

Rory grinned. "Yeah, she's from the Seam, too. What about _you_?" he adds, a note of curiosity in his voice.

"Me? No. I don't have time. I just work." Which was more than less true.

Rory snorted in disbelief. Then he'd glanced around, nodded in the direction of a dark haired girl. "What about her, Gale?"

And that had been how I'd met Oline. It hadn't been anything romantic and I hadn't expected anything to come of a little flirting over beer. But it had, and now we were living together, and I was wondering when would be the best time to propose.

"Morning already?" she asks with a yawn, sitting up, the sheet puddling around her. She reached over to the nightstand to grab her cigarettes. "So do you work today?" she asks me.

"In the office, we're getting a new case on one of Snow's old advisors. Are you at uni today?"

She shakes her head and smiles at me. "Nope, my schedule's different this semester. Just Mondays and Thursdays."

I press my lips to her forehead. "I'll see you when I get off." With that I headed out of the room and outside. Thank God. I hate it when Oline smokes. The house gets stuffy and it smells like sulfur. It reminds me too much of the mines. I unlocked the car and started the engine. It was a company car, straight from District 6. I drove through the new parts of town, the parts constructed after 13 won the war. Then I headed past the blackened ruins of the older sectors, the slums where the poor lived. I keep driving. I don't look at the soot-stained, barefoot children on the side of the street, picking through rubbish. I don't look at the charred remains of the houses, nor the ash-streaked headstones of the cemetery. I keep my head straight and forward, eyes on the road, so I don't have to see the carnage, partly because I'm responsible for it.

I drive out on the winding road. It's new. It had just been paved when I was transferred here. It's part of the Reconstruction of Panem, as they call it in the books now. At the office we just call it cleanup. That way's easier. We don't really have to think about all the stuff getting "reconstructed" then, the stuff that we destroyed in the first place.

The office is huge. It's a large building for the large amount of people who work there. There are maybe a hundred thousand people in our area of 2, and a million in the entire district. Almost three thousand work here, but not all of them are District 2 natives. Most of them, like me, had been recruited by 13 during the rebellion. They lived here now. They were workers, doctors, analysts, or operatives, like Ezra and I. I go inside. The secretary waves me over to check my ID. "Hawthorne," she muses aloud. "Sounds familiar."

"It's a common name," I say smoothly, not wanting to explain why she recognizes it, that I had been the one to destroy the Nut, that I was the reason 2 was wallowing in hell.

She lets me through to the elevator and I head to the second floor conference room, where the presentation would be today. Ezra was already there, a cup of coffee sitting in front of him as he reads papers. Ezra's always here early. He slides the newspaper across the table to me as I sit down. "Do you believe this shit? 'Mayor of District 4 Under Investigation'. Like hell he's the one who started all of this."

"What's it say?"

"Some media outlet in 1 published a story about the bombings, you know, because it's big news, everyone's covering it. They hinted something about the mayor being at fault, and now Paylor has people investigating him."

"What the hell?"

"I know, it's ridiculous. And I got some stuff on Mallory. Apparently the jackass gave his oath that he would become a regular citizen of the Free-Districts-of-fucking-Panem, moves from the Capitol to 6, marries a rich bitch who owns an automobile company. He joins a mob group. Then she gets murdered, he flees to another district, the company goes bankrupt because he embezzled it all and killed her. Paylor says it doesn't matter, it's not a big deal, people are corrupt everywhere."

"So?"

"He's the main suspect behind the bombings, did Paylor just pull that out of her ass?"

"It could be true," I say, flipping through the pictures.

"So could my first marriage, but you see how that turned out," Ezra retorts. "Paylor's losing my mind, if you ask me. First she says let them go, now she's making us go back and find him."

"Ezra, your second marriage isn't all that true, either," I say.

"Yesterday," he says, lowering his voice, "I went home and found Sabille with another man."

"That's tough," I point out, "but you've screwed what, ten other women since you've been married?"

"That was after Maria, before Sabille. But Sabille's five months pregnant. She's not supposed to cheat on me, the father of her children, when she's _pregnant._ The kids weren't home, they were at her mother's. She left with him. Said she's filing divorce today."

"You could be a better role model, you know, for your kids."

Ezra snorts. "Just wait until you and Oline get married. I wouldn't be surprised if you get her pregnant on your honeymoon. Hell, she probably already is."

"Ezra, what are you going to do when Paylor walks in and hears you talking like this?"

He ignores me and sips his coffee. "Just wait until you have kids, Gale. You have to watch your mouth around them. And say goodbye to sex."

"I'm not stupid, Ezra." I glance around to make sure no one else is in the conference room. The other chairs are empty. "I won't get her pregnant."

"Just wait until you _want _kids."

I ignore him. "Why are we here?"

"Paylor's guys are doing the presentation on Mallory, and then they're assigning this case. I hope I get it."

"You won't get it. Your wife's four months pregnant. There's an insurance policy."

"I'll get it," he answers confidently.

I open my mouth to say something witty, but before I can a tall, dark haired woman walks in. Ezra and I stand to salute. She returns it. We sit back down.

"Hawthorne, I trust that Gardner has shown you the details on Mallory."

"Yeah. I mean, yes, ma'am."

I see a smirk flicker across Ezra's face. Ezra doesn't refer to Paylor as "ma'am" because he disagrees with everything she does. He probably criticized Snow less than he does her. Paylor gets an amused look on her face at my blunder and pulls a picture out of Ezra's papers. I see his grip tighten around his coffee, and for a second I think he might puncture the Styrofoam. But he doesn't. Paylor holds up the grainy mugshot. "That's our guy."

"Beg your pardon, but why am I here?" Ezra asks with cold politeness. There was disgust in his voice as he addressed Paylor.

"Since Mallory is our top priority because he's our main suspect behind the District 4 attacks, we're sending our best operatives after him. I may as well say now that you and Hawthorne, along with one of our best analysts out of 6, are assigned to this case."

Ezra shrugs like he doesn't care, but his eyes shine with some kind of adventurous light. He finds another newspaper in a drawer. It must be recent, because it reads _Bombing in 4: 18 Dead, 93 Missing, 244 Injured, Story Cont. Page 7. _We'd sent seven people out of our floor to District 4 this week to handle the situation. I'm on the second paragraph while reading it over Ezra's shoulder when he flips the page.

About fifteen minutes later all twelve chairs are occupied. Paylor, Ezra, and I are now sharing the room with four other men and five other women in business suits. Paylor takes her seat at the head of the table and clears her throat. "As you all know, a man by the name Garrus Mallory is now wanted for acts that go strictly against the law-" at this Ezra shoots me an irritated look- "and is suspected for being behind the bombings in District 4. Beecher and Slowe have the presentation."

Jared Beecher is an analyst who for some reason despises Ezra. Cassia Slowe, the other analyst giving the presentation, dated Ezra between his marriages. They begin droning on about everything that Ezra had summarized for me, but two minutes in something takes me by surprise. I raise my hand to stop Beecher midsentence.

He let out an exasperated sigh. "What is it?"

"Did you say that Mallory fled to the forest bordering 6, and was last seen near 12?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

I glare at Ezra, but he drops his gaze to the table. Paylor gives me a scrutinizing look. "Is there a problem, Hawthorne?"

"No, ma'am." But my heart was sinking. I might see her again. And Ezra seemed to forget to mention he was in 12.

They go with the presentation, basically covering all that Ezra had told me, minus the foul language. Slowe finishes with, "We're sending two operatives and an analyst to District 12 to find information on Mallory or Mallory himself, and they are Gardner, Hawthorne, and Moffat, who you will meet in 6 when your train stops there."

"Slowe, when are we leaving?" His voice is polite. I see her stiffen.

"One week. You will have three months to find Mallory, and if you can't in that time, this case will be reassigned. This is one of the most dangerous and longest assignments you have had. If you find Mallory, you are to contact Paylor and a group will come to detain him.

"And if he somehow dies in the process?" I ask.

"He dies. We're fairly certain he's guilty."

Ezra nods, like he was expecting that, and then goes back to the newspaper, apparently half listening.

"You will receive train tickets tomorrow," Slowe finishes.

Dammit. Three months away from Oline. I don't envy Ezra, who will come back to a wife about to go into labor.

Or three months with Katniss, Mom, and the kids.

Paylor starts explaining other things, but my mind's not on it. I'm near the day I've been both dreading and anticipating for six years. I might see her again.

Katniss.

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><p>"Why didn't you tell me he was in 12?"<p>

"What did you expect me to say?" Ezra shoots back. "'Hey Gale, we're going back to your district so you can relive your shitty childhood and kill someone.' Sorry that I didn't want you to ruin your chances of getting a case."

"I can't go back there," I say, shaking my head. "I can't."

"Because of your dad? The war?"

"Katniss," I say quietly.

"You've got Oline," Ezra says quickly. "You love Oline. You aren't like me, Gale. You've got Oline, and you love her."

Three months away from Oline. Or three months with Katniss.

A headache throbs behind my temples and I excuse myself, mumbling something about how I need to get home.

I pull into Oline's driveway and pause for a moment, briefcase in hand, as I think. How long ago had it been since I'd seen Katniss? Would I even see her in District 12? And if I do, will I even want to come back to Oline?

Katniss won't want to see me after Prim's death. After the bombs _I _helped make killed hundreds of innocent kids. But had she forgiven me? When was the last time I'd even seen her?

Christ, I can't even remember.

I steady my pace and walk in, locking the door behind me. Oline sits in a chair in front of the television, leaning in to watch new footage. There aren't details on the news channel, aren't opinions. In many ways, nothing's changed since before the war. There are just no Games.

I catch the headlines on the channel. _DISTRICT 4: TERRORISM AND CHAOS. _The video shows a large market on a dock, fishing boats moored to it. Everything seems peaceful. The skies are blue. I've watched the video countless times at work, but what happens next always terrifies me. I grit my teeth together as a sound like thunder strikes, and one end of the dock falls into the sea. There are screams. A wall of fire had started somewhere, and as I watch, a man who had just been unloading crates tried to make a run through it. His shirt catches fire. Flames crawl up his body. Smoke fumes from his hair. He shrieks and runs, jumping off the pier to the water below. The whole dock had caught fire by then, and the front crumbles and crashed into the waves with people on it.

The footage stops rolling and goes back to a clean, safe newsroom. The anchorwoman says that that had been only one of the four bombings in the district. The rest had been too graphic to show.

"Gale, do you believe this? Another three died today."

"I've got to talk to you about something," I say, avoiding her question. "I've got a trip to go on next week."

"How long?" Oline is used to my trips.

"Three months, at the most." That's longer than any of the previous ones. She glances up from the television, bewildered.

"The others were maybe two, max."

"This is a big case, hon."

"Where are you going?"

"It's classified, hon."

She nods. She was expecting that, but she still looks worried. "What about Rory? He was going to come up. He'll be disappointed."

No, he won't. Aloud, I say, "I'll call him tomorrow. He can come up when I get back."

The people on the news channel are discussing the possible suspects for the attacks. They don't mention Garrus Mallory. I clench my fists. What's Paylor playing at?

"Gale, is this about 4?"

"No," I lie. "It's classified, Oline."

She nods again. Most of our conversations are like that now, unspoken or few words passing between us. We eat supper. We kiss for a while on the couch. One thing leads to another, and when we're done I go to the bathroom and take a shower. For a long time I stand under the warm spray, a pain in my chest.

I had never expected that I would see Katniss again. It had never been in my intentions to visit her, or see her. We both made it clear that we didn't want to see each other after Prim's death. She wasn't in the equation. But it now it seems like she's always been a variable.

_You love Oline, Gale. _

I go back to the bedroom and find Oline already asleep. I wrap my arms around her and kiss her forehead, but I can't help but compare her to Katniss. I remember how it felt to hold Katniss in my arms.

_Oneweekoneweekoneweekoneweekoneweekoneweek._


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks to VictorFromDistrict7, Splashpaw, OnyxJinx (thank you for your review, it really helped me develop this chapter!), and Truenorth12 for reviewing, I really appreciate all the feedback. This is mainly an introductory chapter of an OC character, so I apologize if it's boring. **

**Chapter 2**

**Evangeline Moffat **

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><p><em>And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune,<em>

_Then the piper will lead us to reason._

_And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,_

_And the forests will echo with laughter._

_-Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin _

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><p>I feel the adrenaline pulsing in my veins, the blood roaring in my ears. I click the bullet into the chamber and raise the revolver so I can set it on my target thirty yards away. The range is far for a handgun. I'm not sure of my skills, but I needed them.<p>

I fire once. The lights in the room lift. I stare at the wooden target. It's undamaged. Hebe shakes her head impatiently. "Moffat, you can do a hell of a lot better than that."

"You think so?"

"Well, you should. You leave tomorrow, right? Is this your first work in the field?"

"Yeah."

Hebe raises her gun and puts a bullet through the target with scarcely a moment of hesitation. "Where's this case at? I'm going to 4 in a few days."

"12."

She nods in acknowledgement. "I didn't go to the conference, half the people on our floor are out in District 4."

"There's a lot of shit going on there," I reason. I steady my hand. My finger hovers over the trigger, and when I pull it, my hand moves up. I miss the target by an inch.

"You've got to fight the recoil. Keep your shoulder relaxed," Hebe advises. "Is anyone else going with you or is this a solo?"

"Paylor's sending two operatives out of District 2," I say, smiling as I hit the target this time. "Gardner and Hawthorne."

"Is Gardner the one who thinks he's hot shit?"

"So I hear," I answer. "And Hawthorne worked with District 13 during the war on propaganda."

Hebe nods and shoots through the center of the target. "I think I worked with him in 13. He's a good shot. Good guy, too. Pity Gardner's going with you." She glances at her watch. "We should probably get going, I've got a load of papers to sort through before I leave."

We return our guns to the range clerk and jog back through the grounds to the offices. "What are you doing in District 4?" I ask Hebe as we run.

"I'm helping with the refugee situation. They've got over five thousand people from 13 out there, rounding everyone up. Train security is insane now." Hebe doesn't sound alarmed by the task, or even daunted. But she's been doing this for years, so why would she?

We take an elevator to our respective floors. I stay the rest of the day in my office reading Mallory's file. Even though I had paid close attention during the presentation, I read it. It makes me sick. The guy is a bastard and a womanizer. The more I know about him, the worse I feel about tracking him down. At the end of the workday I take the file with me and head to my apartment in town. It overlooks a busy urban street. A chicken struts across the street, cawing noisily. Three girls jump rope and chant, their faces dirt-streaked. A woman sits on the steps of a building across from my apartment, chewing on a cigar. In the apartment above mine, there was a lot of thumping and moaning. Someone in the tenement beside me shouted something inaudible. So much for the soundproof walls the landlord had glorified.

It would take three days and two nights to get to District 12 by train. Aboard will be, no doubt, people from every district. The cars will be clotted with refugees from 4, hats veiling fresh scars and distrust thick in the air. Old Capitolites, the vibrant green dye fading at last from their hair and their vermillion tattoos becoming less and less prominent. Perhaps one of the very few Victors left, trying to hide in their newly created world, the child of the rebellion. Certainly doctors and workers out of District 13. And people searching for work in the reconstruction of a destroyed district.

I eat. The world's not as black and white as it had been before the rebellion. Patches of white here and black splotches there, but between the two horizons an eternal gray field. The only things that have changed since Paylor took office is that there are no Games and more food. We'd gained only one obvious right in the shift of power-religion. But they call us free, so are we? People in the slums had quietly practiced Christianity before the rebellion. I had.

The slums are one of the only sectors of 6 that remain from the bombings that occurred seven years ago. I had been seventeen and married with a child. Our street had been virtually untouched, and I still had the same residence that I had then. But then I had shared it with David and Imala. David had been eighteen and at work.

I open one of the bottles of liquor I keep under the kitchen sink and take a swig. It burns like fire down my throat, but I relish it. My vision goes foggy around the corners, just a little, after my third bottle. I drop it on the floor, and it shatters. The lessee in the room below me begins to shout obscenities at me. Clumsily I sweep up the shards and stagger to bed.

I sleep fitfully that night, my dreams disturbed by fire and the sound of screams in front of me, the train derailing by a force of God. Or perhaps not a force by God, but a force of Lucifer… I see the hovercraft rise just above us… I am holding Imala so tightly…

I wake at six and go to take a shower but end up retching while I do so. The chicken across the rode crows in sync with my alarm. I look in the mirror. My eyes are tired and baggy but not bloodshot. I pack the few things I would be bringing-a few pairs of clothes. We would get weapons from an arms dealer in 12. I wear my best clothes. I'd been to the train station plenty of times. The people always dressed in finery, jewels on their throats and gold on their fingers and cashmere around their shoulders, as if to make an impression. My clothes are thick and woolen. It'll be cold in District 12, and for the months that we're there. David's mother had bought them for me. She had been a wealthy woman, one of the scarce doctors here. Now she is a nurse in a District 13 hospital.

I hold my breath and slip down the stairs to the frigid outside. Snow flurries drift around, beautiful and cold. Flakes cling to my eyelashes but I wipe them away. The street is now empty, bare of jump roping girls and smoking women and pernicious men. Even the chicken is gone. I suspect it to have been butchered between the time that I woke up and that I set off for the station.

When I get to the train station I check my watch. Eight-twelve. The train should be arriving shortly. A locomotive from 9 comes through shortly, hauling grain. Waiting with me outside the station is a stout man bundled up in filthy, torn dress clothes and a well-preserved fedora. Once the clothes had been expensive, no doubt, but now they are little more than rags. The hat seems new, or maybe it's prized, because it's in good condition. I recognize him from the office. He's going to District 4. He tips his hat to me. There are several others waiting inside in the warmth, but none that I recognize.

Three minutes later the Capitol train arrives. Hawthorne and Gardner are on there somewhere. It's a passenger train, one of the best Panem has to offer. It will travel from the Capitol to District 13, in numerical order. The doors open and people rush out. Maybe they will get on connecting trains. Maybe this is their destination. But Hawthorne and Gardner are still on. I step behind the elderly couple in front of me and wait patiently in line. A steward looks at their tickets for a heartbeat. "Second class," he says. "Follow that fellow in the blue uniform, he'll show you to your cabin." When I step up to show him my own ticket, he takes one look at it and says, "Elise Houghton, first class. Next car, just step through the railing and open the gate. The first class dining car is right behind it."

"I'm meeting someone here," I reply, recalling the aliases written on the paperwork. "Trenton Hunt, first class. Would you know where I could find him?"

"Ma'am, he could be in his cabin, but I'm afraid that the directory is not open for passengers to see. If it makes it any easier for you, most passengers spend their time in the dining and sitting calls." From his accent, I can tell that he's from District 3, in the south. "I would suggest that you look there. Your cabin is number six-fifteen, on the left."

"Thank you, sir." I follow his directions and slip through the car to the door. Outside on the platform between the cars is fresh air. I open the creaky gate and step over to the other car. I find my cabin and open it, sticking my ragged suitcase on the floral bed. I open it and sift through the papers before finding my ID. I'm Elise Houghton today.

I'd been on nicer trains before. Last year I had rode on what had been a tribute train to 8. The luxury had been impossibly beautiful and unnatural. It didn't seem to be a bit right to keep operating a tribute train. A bit disrespectful, really.

_Elise J. Houghton. Trenton B. Hunt. Grant M. Wallace. _

I follow the steward's instructions to the dining car. We're still stationary.

The worst train ride I'd ever experienced was during the rebellion. The rebels in 6 had stormed the train station and Justice Building, and Peacekeepers were killing anyone they could on the streets. The city had never been more crowded, however. Tear gas was released in the square. People were being shot and clubbed just a block away. Bombs dropped a half hour later where the riots started in the factory sector. I took Imala with me to the station and we boarded one hectic with refugees. The ride had been particularly horrible. It ended with bombs and a crash.

I open the door to the dining car just as we begin to move. It's as lavish as the Capitol, the glass walls letting in the glorious light. Opulent mahogany tables fill the car. I watch for a brief moment as the landscape rushed past, the heavens colliding with the earth as we leave the gray of the station and into the world. The light is a blinding white for a millisecond before my eyes adjust.

I take a chair at a four-seating table. A waitress in a costly black uniform takes my order for breakfast. If Gardner and Hawthorne are to show up at all, it will be here by noon.

Sure enough, after maybe twenty minutes, a man in a slate gray suit comes in from another car. His suit is the color of ash, or stone, a transfixing color. He wears a navy tie. He looks rich. Anyone would think he is a Mayor, or a government official, or a particularly successful businessman. His sharp eyes flicker around before they meet mine momentarily. He shifts his gaze to a point behind me.

"May I share your table?" he asks politely, standing in front of me. He's very handsome, with short black hair and dark eyes. One of them, most likely. I can't remember what Hawthorne looked like in the District 13 propaganda. They never give us pictures of the other agents. If someone else gets them, the entire agency could be exposed.

"Yes," I say, and the waitress comes back past with a plate of hotcakes and a steaming cup of coffee. She takes his order and leaves.

"What's your name?" he asks, leaning forward, hand propping up his chin. He gives me a smile that could be flirtatious, but his eyes are cold with intelligence. This is one of them. I'm certain.

"Elise," I say. "Elise Houghton."

"Is that so? I knew an Elise once. She was a refugee I met in District 8."

"And you are?" I ask.

"Trenton Hunt."

I don't dare raise my eyebrow. Anyone here could be an infiltrator, an interloper. "Nice to meet you."

"Grant's reading a book a car over, in the sitting areas. It's quiet there." _Definition: We can actually talk there._

"That sounds nice. Was your trip hectic or did you make it in time?" _Definition: Was there any trouble with security? _

He smiles. "Everything went perfectly. I assume the same for you?"

I give a slight nod and finish the hotcakes. They're better than anything I can afford in 6. Even if food is distributed better now, hardly anyone can pay for luxuries. There are still people in my apartment building, especially in the bigger families, where people go without food.

Trenton/whoever gets his food about a half hour later. He eats very quickly and stands. When I look out the window, I see that we are at last moving. "Shall we go meet Grant?" His voice is almost too formal. He's disguising his accent for anyone listening.

"Yes, I would enjoy that."

He pays for our breakfast and I stand. "Shall we go now?"

"Yes," I say.

We cross cars, balancing precariously for a moment on the edge of the rail, nothing but a cable connecting us to the next car. Trenton's shoes are black leather, opulent night shining against the mire of District 6. I fix my eyes on them as he jumps across, the railroad disappearing underneath us. He makes the distance easily. His shoes gleam. He is rich. No one can afford a suit and shoes like that in my sector of 6. Resentment fills me, and it takes me by surprise.

"It's not a far jump," he tells me, his eyes puzzled. "You know that, right?"

"Of course."

I'm weightless in the air for a heartbeat before my feet land next to Trenton. He opens the door. There are couches, the Capitol made kind, lining the walls and an unoccupied bar. A man sits at one of the couches, his face hidden by a book. Trenton makes his way for him.

"She's here." His voice has lost all of its formality. There's a definite District 2 accent in the two words he uttered.

The man reading reaches behind his seat and pulls out a miniscule silver device. He puts a finger to his lips to motion our silence before crushing it in his fist. "We've been bugged here. By Paylor or Mallory's men, I'm not sure. Maybe both." He looks at me. "Moffat, right?"

I nod.

"Ezra Gardner," Trenton/Ezra says. "And Gale Hawthorne." Gale, the man reading, extends an arm to shake my hand. "We prefer first names, I suppose because Gale and I are friends, but that might not be the safest thing at the moment."

I don't really have friends in District 6, unless you count Hebe, but I know relatively little about her apart from the fact that she sleeps around a lot. I sit down. There's not exactly a lot to discuss. The door slides open again and the bartender appears. I watch him warily. I doubt he planted the bug, but it's hard to say. Gardner orders a drink.

"Are you looking forward to District 12?" Hawthorne asks me, his accent changed. He could be from District 1 now, and I would never know any difference.

"I suppose," I say quietly.

"I grew up there," he says. "But I was a refugee in District 13 for a while."

That wasn't _too _suspicious. Nobody would think much of it, because anyone still alive from District 12 would have had to have been a refugee. I catch a glimpse of the book he's reading. _The Life and Death of Coriolanus Snow. _No wonder he's so engrossed in it. If it says anything, anything at all about Paylor or the Agency, the writer could be executed. If there's anything about Mallory, it could help us track him down.

The keyword there being _might._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Am I distinguishing my character POVs enough?**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: There's a lot of drama in this chapter, to kind of set the mood for further situations that will happen. Don't forget to review!**

**Chapter 3**

* * *

><p><em>"And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones.<em>

_'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone._

_We're setting fire to our insides for fun._

_Collecting pictures from a flood that wrecked our home,_

_It was a flood that wrecked this home._

_And you caused it,_

_And you caused it,_

_And you caused it."_

_-Youth, Daughter_

* * *

><p><strong>Katniss Everdeen, District 12<strong>

It all seemed to end when I saw him. All of it seemed to fade away when I saw him, and all that I saw was him and he alone.

I was at the train station, waiting to pick up my mother, who was supposed to be coming in soon. She hadn't given me the specifics of when she would be in, just that it would be sometime this week. She was coming from District 5 to teach the nurses at the new hospital. So I would come to the train station daily, in the mornings before the train came in, and wait to see if she would come off. A train came every day, usually with lumber and cargo and food. There were occasional passengers, twenty on a good day. They came as business entrepreneurs, refugees returning at last, government officials monitoring the coal quota, people starting over on life (and what better place to start over than a district starting over?), and as people like my mother, visiting friends and family. Those were the types of people who would dare come to a small, sooty district with only one town.

I was getting ready to leave when the train began to release passengers. I already figured my mother wasn't on, because she would be waiting at the window to see me if she were. Today was a good day for 12-there were about twenty-five people who got off of the train. I was actually heading out, stepping through to the inside of the stone building. I watch the people in front of me-reuniting with people they've not seen in years, people walking into the district, people everywhere. Some of them cast me uneasy looks. Some of the brush past me without a second thought.

People disgust me. The assholes who don't know a thing about anything, who don't know what pain is.

About ten feet ahead of me walk three people. Two men and a woman. I can't see their faces, but one of the men looks vaguely familiar. He has a dark brown buzz cut and olive skin. I'm not sure why I know him, or why I think I do. The woman turns slightly as she talks to the other man. I catch a sight of her face. Short blonde hair framing a soft face, her nose freckled, a little acne still around her nose. She's young. Maybe twenty-five. Young enough to get acne. My age, maybe. I'm twenty-four. She's pretty. She wears a gray dress, but she doesn't look like she comes from money. Maybe she's a lover travelling with one of the men. The other man, the one who was talking to her, has jet black hair cut in the same military fashion. Definitely military. They're definitely military.

I come out of the train station behind them, and they're staring around, as if in awe. The guy with black hair has a stern expression, as if scolding the other two. He's young as well. Maybe twenty, but I doubt it. He's skinny and lean and looks like he's no older than some of the teenagers in the school. His face is older, worn, like it was cut from ragged cloth. The way he holds himself makes me know that he's military, his shoulders back, his head high. Then the other man turns around. He doesn't see me, but I glimpse him long enough to recognize him.

Gale.

* * *

><p>I turn and head home as fast as I can after I see him. I don't think that he had seen me. I head to the Victors' Village. Nine of the cabins are now occupied, by the first people who had come back to District 12-Greasy Sae and her grandchildren, Haymitch, Thom and his wife, and a few others I'm less than familiar with. There are new houses around the district now, everywhere. In the Seam, where Hazelle, Rory, Vick, and Posy live. That's where Gale will go first, no matter what his companions will say.<p>

I step into the yard and pass the primroses, fresh grief ripping into my heart. That's something else that Gale brings. Guilt and pain.

I wipe my feet off on the mat and step inside. Peeta is painting in the study. He pokes his head out the door, streaks of pale blue coating his face and hands. He takes in me, and just me. "Your mother didn't come in today?"

"No," I say, managing to keep my voice level. "Probably tomorrow." I debate whether or not I should mention seeing Gale and decide against it. It's not like Peeta and Gale had completely gotten along.

"Probably," he agrees.

Is that it? Is this what's supposed to happen during marriage? Short, awkward conversations. I nod and head down the hall to the kitchen. I take a slice of bread from the pantry. Peeta joins me after a few minutes.

"Are you okay?" he asks. He looks worried.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I ask.

"You're quiet today," he says at last.

"I'm fine." I almost snap back the response. _Don't let Gale get between you and Peeta. _"Why does it matter, anyway?"

He puts his hands up in a soundless apology. Then he says, "Because you're my _wife_." For a long moment we just sit there, eating bread. Then he says, "Town's growing."

"Yeah. I saw about twenty people get off the train today." I'm about to say something about Gale, but clamp my mouth shut, declining the thought. Better he doesn't know. He gives no sign of noticing, but continues to slice bread.

We go to the living room and I turn on the television. The news is on. There's a reporter standing in front of an ocean. Obviously District 4. There's a pier in the background, and I can see that it's the camera's main focus. There's a trace of fear in the reporter's eyes, but her hands are steady as she holds her microphone and her voice is firm. She continues her broadcast.

"Here behind me, on the Finnick Odair Memorial Pier, government agents received a bomb threat." The camera zooms in on a figure in a chair on the otherwise empty pier. "The victim tied to the chair has been identified as Ashby Fairbain, a teacher in a District 4 school and a mother of three children. An explosives team has been trying to unwire a series of bombs located on the pier for the past eight hours."

I lean in closer as the camera's focus changes once again to six black-cloaked figures standing on one end of the pier. "Peeta!" He steps in the room, puzzled, but his eyes darken when he sees the television.

"As you can see, the area has been evac-" A sound like thunder rips through the air, and all I can hear is static for several seconds. Then, brief catches of the scene: fire engulfs the boardwalk, a cloud of ash and smoke rising. The reporter mumbles, "Jesus Christ-" The camera jostles. I can hear screams. Gooseflesh rises on my neck as the camera falls facedown onto the ground, nothing but cement filling the camera. But the sounds are still there.

Then the cameras come back, but the pier is gone. So is Ashby Fairbain and the members of the unfortunate bomb squad. The reporter is at lost, staring at the screen. Her microphone is gone. "Uh… Back to you, Tim." Her voice is a barely concealed sob. Behind her, I see fire still raging upon the water.

_As you can see, the area has been evacuated. _That's what'd she'd been trying to say. My eyes sting. I look at Peeta. His fists are clenched and a tear runs down his cheek.

_That was live. _

The screen goes back to a newsroom. Everyone is ashen-faced, looking sick. Nobody speaks.

_They let us watch those people die on live television._

* * *

><p><strong>Gale Hawthorne, District 12<strong>

* * *

><p>"Holy shit!"<p>

"Gale, get in here!"

It's Rory and Vick, both of whom are sitting in front of the television. Ezra and Evangeline are here at Mom's, too. We're staying here, for tonight, at least. I'm about to rebuke them for their language when I see what he's talking about. A pier in District 4, ablaze.

"Is this live?" I ask.

Ezra shakes his head, eyes dark. "It's a replay."

"It happened like five minutes ago," Rory says.

"Holy shit," Vick whispers again. I want to send him and Posy to their rooms so that they don't have to watch. Mom's eyes flicker over me. She knows why I'm really here, and it's not because I wanted to see her or because "some bullshit", which is what Ezra told her. This is _real. _This is _happening. _She knows it's connected to 4.

"That's the fifth bombing in 4 this month," Posy says. Rory and I exchange looks.

"Go to bed, Posy," he says. He hesitates for a moment. "You too, Vick."

Vick opens his mouth to protest, but obviously knows better. I hear his door slam down the hall. Mom herds Rory, Evangeline, Ezra, and I into the kitchen. "So that's why you're here?" she demands. "To do some shit that has to do with that?"

I've never heard her cuss before in my entire life. Rory looks up, anger etched into the lines of his face. "Shut up!"

Evangeline meets my eyes and raises an eyebrow. Ezra dumps the embers from his cigarette into an ashtray sitting on the table. "Would you rather we didn't?" Ezra he asks softly. "Why don't I just call them up now, see if they can pay us a visit?"

Mom just stares at him, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Because that's what we'd be doing if we quit," Ezra continues. He puffs on his cigarette for a while. Rory steams in his chair.

"You're not doing a very good job," she remarks snidely.

"Shut up," Rory hisses through gritted teeth. He jumps up, but I grab him by the shirt and pull him back.

Ezra stares at him for a few seconds and continues smoking. It reminds me of Oline. She uses the same brand of cigarettes. I can tell from the smell. He goes on. "Hell, we can't help it if we aren't in 4. But if you really think that, then think that. I sure as hell know that if I had been in 4 today that girl wouldn't have died, or at least I'd go down with her."

"You think so? You really think you could save all those people?" There's an accusatory edge to her voice.

"I don't think so, I know so," Ezra corrects. "You don't know who I am. I was a Peacekeeper when I was eighteen. I've killed people you wouldn't want to think about."

Mom scowls. For the first time I notice how old she looks. Her hair is thinning and what remains is gray at the roots. There are bags under her eyes that weren't there six years ago.

_Jesus Christ, I haven't been home for six years. _The thought sends guilt tingling up my spine.

"Maybe you should be out finding him instead of hiding in here like a coward."

This comment seems to push Ezra over the edge. He stands up. "Maybe you should be grateful you aren't Ashby Fairbain, you old bitch," he snaps.

Mom looks from him to me and back to Ezra. Evangeline shifts around uncomfortably before sitting down, less than certain, next to Rory.

"So you really think that being here, in this house, is a good idea?" she demands. "You don't think that the people who want you dead won't know you're here?" Her voice is bitter.

"Mrs. Hawthorne, we have every reason to believe that there is a dangerous person living in this district. If you want us to leave and stay somewhere else, we will. But we won't be able to guarantee your protection if we do so," Evangeline says.

Mom turns to me, her eyes dark. "You'll put Vick and Posy in danger. Get out."

I gape at her, unable to form the words to defend myself. Rory stands up, furious, and for one fateful heartbeat I fear that he might hit her. Evangeline grabs him by the collar of his shirt and Ezra forces him to sit. Even still, my brother is shouting profanities and expletives. "You've never done anything good for us! _I hate you!" _

Somewhere down the hall a door creaks, and Rory stops, his face red and shining with tears and sweat. It looks like one of his veins might herniate. I suddenly feel very guilty that Vick and Posy can no doubt hear everything.

"Mom," I say softly. "I'm your son. Do you really want me to go? Because I will, and I'll never come back."

She doesn't say anything for a long time. "You can stay," she decides at last. "But if there's any sign of something happening to Vick and Posy, get out."

Rory stands without a word and heads outside. He slams the door so hard that a picture frame falls off the wall. Ezra sticks the cigarette butt into the ashtray before traipsing upstairs. Evangeline hesitates for a second but follows him. Then it's just Mom and I.

"Why?" I ask. I hate that my voice sounds broken.

"You left us," she says bitterly. She takes a bottle of white liquor out of the cabinet and takes a swig. Now I can see why she aged so quickly, and why Rory refers to her as "Hazelle." "You left us when we needed you the most. You weren't even here to see that we got a house. Thom built this place, not you."

"So I'm not your son anymore?" I snap. I get up, not waiting for a reply. She doesn't try to stop me. I go outside and sit down on the porch steps. Snow falls softly around. I curse under my breath. Rory is out here as well, kicking the mailbox. A dog barks far off at every dent he insinuates.

"Is she an alcoholic?" I demand.

"Lots of shit," Rory says furiously. The metal post the mailbox sits on snaps in half.

This is all my fault. I hold my head in my hands, trying to make sense of it all. Mallory is the last thing on my mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Splashpaw, wehaveaproblem, and xSiriusly Insanex, you guys are the best for reviewing! Please read and reivew! **

**Chapter 4**

* * *

><p><em>"Close enough to start a war,<em>

_All that I have is on the floor._

_God only knows what we're fighting for. _

_All that I say, you always say more."_

_-Turning Tables, Adele_

* * *

><p><strong>Ezra Gardner<strong>

I lean over the stairs' railing, searching for Gale or his brother. I can hear voices outside, but not what they're saying. I head back downstairs to the living room. After a few minutes Gale returns, shaking his head. He sits down on the worn couch beside me.

"This is crazy," he says at last.

"No shit. I'm surprised it took you this long to figure that out."

"What time is it?"

"Like eleven. I'm going to sleep. Is the guestroom available? Evangeline's in there."

"Does it really matter? Sleep in the floor for a night. It won't kill you."

"You can," I say. "And sorry if I offend you, but your mom's a bitch."

"I know."

He suddenly looks very tired and older, a decade more than he actually is. Most people think I'm only eighteen upon meeting, and when I tell them my age, they're surprised. When we'd first met Evangeline, I'd thought she was still a teenager. But that mistake could never be made with Gale. Especially not now, when he looks like he's bordering middle age.

"Hey," I say, suddenly feeling guilty for bringing up Mrs. Hawthorne, "at least you have a mother. I was dropped off at the Training Center when I was three weeks old." It was true. I'd trained for years to volunteer before being recruited as a Peacekeeper.

"I guess so." He doesn't sound like he's grudging or concurring.

"Go to sleep," I say. "We need to talk about the bombing tomorrow. I'll stay down here." _I don't want to freak out Evangeline, _I add silently. _I'll leave that to you. _

Gale hesitates and heads upstairs. I lie down on the couch. After a few minutes Evangeline comes down, flustered, carrying blankets. She scowls when she sees me. "_You're _down here?"

"Where did you think I'd be? Why don't you take the guestroom?"

"Hawthor- er, Gale is in there."

"Why don't you join him?" I ask with a sneer. She blushes. She really doesn't belong in this career field. "There's an extra bedroom up there tonight, because I really don't think Rory will be back tonight. He's pissed."

She nods and drops the blankets beside me. I'm momentarily confused, but then she heads upstairs. I can hear her footsteps leading the entire way up and down the hallway, the door opening and closing. And then I'm alone. I'm surprised at how the thought sends a pang of sadness through my body. It's been five days since I'd last seen Sabille or the kids. It hadn't been a happy encounter, either. I'd gone to her mother's house to try to reason with her and at least see the kids.

_"What are you doing here?"_

_"Can I see Kent and Estella?"_

_There they are, peeking out from behind a doorway. I bite my tongue._

_"Let me come in," I say, a hint of desperation in my voice. _

_"No," she says. And she shuts the door. _

I'd stayed on the doorstep for almost an hour after that, waiting to see if she opened the door again, but she didn't. I didn't even get to hold them or say goodbye or that I loved them before I left.

Was she still seeing the lawyer about the divorce? Or would she just pack up her things and leave like Maria had? God forbid, what if she takes the kids with her? I stare at the ceiling, my eyes wide open. The thought of never seeing them again scares me more than any fleeting notion of Garrus Mallory. The next time I'll have an opportunity to see them-if Catalina hasn't left by then-will be February. Three long months. I sit up and pull my wallet out of my pocket, thumbing through pictures. Sabille's most recent ultrasound for our unborn daughter. Kent grinning while Estella stands on stubby legs. Sabille. There's one of the three of them together. I'd been the one taking it, so I'm not in it. It makes me miss them even more.

Will I ever even see them again?

_Of course I will. _But even the thought is halfhearted. I push any musings of my family to the back of my mind.

The job will be harder than Paylor seems to think. If Garrus Mallory is behind the bombings-which there is only a scrap of information to suggest-he's doing a good job of distracting attention from District 12. Half the Agency is in District 4, and we're the only three people who are here, where he _might _be. Then there's the entire issue of if he's here in District 12, how the hell is he causing the bombings? He can't be doing all of this from here, at least not by himself. And if there's a mob organization involved, he can't be the only one responsible. Or maybe he has a computer system, with strings of numbers. That's what the Capitol did during the rebellion. Most of their missiles had been stationed in 2 and with a few careful clicks, hell could rain down. I know, because I helped them in their endeavors to kill Katniss Everdeen.

An awful thought occurs to me. District 13 and the rebels had been just as capable as doing the same as the Capitol. Then you shake your head. There is no reason Paylor would justify this.

Maybe he was the one who organized the bombings, but we can already arrest him on sight if we see him for everything he's already done. And he'd get life in an Agency prison for them, most likely, but they'll execute him for being the bombing suspect, even if it can't be proved.

_"As you all know, a man by the name of Garrus Mallory is now wanted for acts that go strictly against law. He is also suspected for being behind the bombing in 4." _That was Paylor, on the day of the presentation. _He is also_ suspected _for being behind the bombing in 4._ He might be innocent of that, then.

Never mind that. Our job is to find him. We're not judges. Innocence has never bothered me. Because really, no one is innocent now.

For some reason, the thought comforts me. That Mallory deserves to die. I close my eyes as darkness begins to swamp me.

* * *

><p>The next morning I head to the kitchen and find Gale and Evangeline eating toast. Rory's behind the counter, making coffee. "Where're the other kids?" I ask with a yawn.<p>

"School," Rory answers. I sit down next to Evangeline and take a piece of toast from the plate in the middle.

"Do you know anyone who would have seen a shady character walking in the woods?" Evangeline asks Rory. For some reason the wording makes me grin.

"Well, I would," Rory says, "but I haven't been out to hunt for about a month or so."

"Katniss would," Gale says quietly.

"Everdeen?" I ask. "The Victor? The Mockingjay?"

"Yeah," he says. "We were friends before I transferred. She's the best archer I know, and we basically saved each other's families before the Games."

Rory lowers his gaze. "Yeah," he says lamely. "Katniss was a great person until she came back from the Games. They really fucked her up."

Gale glares at him but doesn't say anything, and Rory continues. "It's a shame about what happened to Prim." This time Gale flinches, and I can hear a thump under the table. This time Rory glares at him. Gale must've kicked him. "Sorry," Rory mumbles.

"Where can we meet this girl?" Evangeline asks.

"She lives in the Victors' Village, but she doesn't like visitors. She and Peeta are quiet. They don't really talk to anyone. Or do anything, really."

I glance at Gale, but he's not glaring at Rory anymore. He stares at the table.

"Do you think she'll talk to us?"

Rory shrugs. "Maybe. I go see them every once in a while. She gives me tips on shooting, but we just go to the Meadow, not the woods. I don't even know if she goes out there anymore, but she's one of the only ones who know them well. Most don't hunt anymore."

"Gale, do you think we could talk to her?"

He doesn't say anything, just stands up and looks out the window. Evangeline shrugs. "Let's go see her." Her dismissal of Gale's behavior surprises me.

"Okay," Gale says dully. I raise an eyebrow at Rory, but he just shakes his head.

Fifteen minutes later, the four of us are bound for the Victors' Village. 12 is puny in comparison to 2. This place has only one town in the entire district, with maybe ten thousand people in total. 2 has that many people at its university alone. But then, most of what District 12 and its population had been are now putrid heaps of ash sinking into the ground. Most of the actual town is gone, according to Gale.

The Victors' Village holds twelve houses. 2's had been like that until the amount of living Victors surpassed that. Ten more houses had been constructed. Only nine of the cabins are occupied here. A blonde guy who looks to be around Gale's age sits outside of one. He sees Gale and waves, who returns the gesture. "I'll see you later," he calls. The guy nods. We continue to follow Rory.

The cabin Rory leads us to doesn't give off a warm, friendly glow like the one with the man had. Instead most of the lights are off, there is no furniture on the porch, and when I glance through the window, there is no sign of children and no pictures on the walls. No sign of life, in other words. Rory knocks on the door. While we wait for someone to answer, he nods in the direction of a house a few lots over. "Haymitch lives there." Before any of us can reply, the door opens. A grim woman stands in front of us. Her expression is sharp as steel, her eyes cold as fire. Her dark hair is braided. She's young. Maybe my age. Maybe Gale's. She takes in Rory first, then Evangeline, then me. And when her eyes fall on Gale her jaw drops and her grip tightens around the doorknob until her knuckles turn white. She's about to slam the door in our faces when Rory says pleadingly, "Please Katniss, this is important."

She hesitates, clearly debating. "Come in," she says reluctantly. Now that Rory had clarified who she was, it became obvious. She looked nothing like the way I remember, but I'd only seen her in person once before, at the Nut. It had been years since she'd been in television propos. Her skin seems translucent, sickly. "Peeta's in the study. He'll want to say hi to his _old friend._" The way she stresses it suggests otherwise. "Peeta!"

Peeta, however, hasn't changed any since the Capitol propaganda. His eyes look a bit haunted. I've seen it many times in criminals and victims I talked to. Most were anticipating death. You could see it in their eyes, the way their pupils expanded or didn't. Peeta had the same look. He seems puzzled, and then he sees Gale. He sort of smiles, but it's not forced. He doesn't come across as disgusted, either, like Katniss had. "Hey, Gale. How's 2 been?"

"Good," he says. The silence stretches out, and then Katniss says, the menace plain in her voice, "Why are you here?"

I glance at Gale, but his head is lowered in shame. Rory answers for him. "These are government agents, and they're tracking someone who is suspected to be behind the bombings in 4." Katniss flinches, and he goes on. "The guy was last seen in the woods here, and they were wondering if you had."

She scowls. It's not the question that bothers her, I decide. It's the fact that Gale needs the information. _What the hell happened between them? _"I haven't been out since October," she says.

"That's too bad," I say. "Do you know anyone else who might have?"

"Thom, maybe. What's the guy look like?"

Evangeline reaches into her bag and pulls out a grainy mugshot of Mallory. Peeta raises an eyebrow. "He's not what I expected. He looks…civilized."

I almost laugh. It's not even funny. "This man is one of our only suspects with the capability to organize the bombings."

Katniss squints at the photograph. "Let's go sit down," she murmurs. "Tell me who you guys are."

Within a few minutes we're all sitting around a circular table. Peeta pours coffee and retrieves freshly baked biscuits from the oven. He gestures for us to eat, and Evangeline reaches for one and tears into it.

"This man's name is Garrus Mallory. I don't know what he goes by, but that's his name," I say. "He was the Capitol's Junior Secretary of Defense and dodged execution by throwing money at Paylor. He's already wanted for sex crimes, embezzlement, and murder in District 6, and he fled here as soon as there was a warrant out for his arrest. No one at the Agency had seen him since September until several weeks ago, here."

"How could he cause the bombings if he's here?" Peeta asks, mystified.

"Computer codes or an organized crime group," Evangeline supplies. "We're fairly certain he's guilty, but he does need arrested and tried for what he did in 6."

"They took out Finnick's pier," Katniss says quietly. "The Finnick Odair Memorial Pier."

"It was a message to you and the other Victors who helped with the rebellion," I say. "And Paylor and the Agency. If they can still corrupt Finnick Odair, they can definitely get to you."

Evangeline hands Katniss the mugshot again. She stares at it intently for a few minutes and shakes her head. "Sorry. I haven't seen him. Not a lot of people go out in the woods anymore-Thom and I and a handful of people who can't get enough to eat in the Seam."

"Try to picture him with different colored hair, or bald, or with a beard," Evangeline urges. Again, she shakes her head.

"The last person I remember seeing in the woods was Thom. He had a wild turkey. Before that…there aren't many."

"If you can think of any time that you have," Evangeline finishes, "call us. We wish you the best." They're the formal words I recognize. I've performed and recited just as well as Evangeline is.

When I was a Peacekeeper, before the rebellion started, one of the others in my squadron had been killed during an avalanche. She'd been a District 2 native all her life, like me, and I had been the one to return her remains to her mother and father. It was a big deal. She was a commander. "We wish you the best," I had said after leaving the funeral. The words were dull and empty because I had known Commander Dejesus better than most, but I wasn't allowed to grieve. I wasn't allowed to say anything more than those five words. Maybe it's better. Maybe that's why Paylor adopted that ideal, too.

"Your names?" Peeta asks politely, jolting me back to reality.

"Gardner and Moffat," I say, extending my hand. "I believe you already know Agent Hawthorne."

We head outside. I breathe a sigh of relief when we get out of sight of the Victors' Village. "That was interesting," I comment to Gale. He says nothing, just shrugs.

"Why does she hate you?" I ask. Evangeline is a few yards ahead, out of earshot. I'm glad. She doesn't know Gale.

"Fuck off," he says quietly, and he kicks a rock on our path. I pick up my pace to walk alongside Rory and Evangeline. Rory opens the door when we reach the house and we file in. Gale leaves again after a few minutes to "catch up." I'm the one who dares to ask what Evangeline and I have both been wondering.

"Why does she hate him?"

Rory turns on the television. "You mean you don't know?"

"I've known Gale for five years," I say, "and he's never mentioned that he knows her. I knew, from the propos in the war, but I didn't know about _this._"

"What has he told you?" Rory asks quietly.

"He blew up the Nut. I know that. I was in there when it happened. I made it out." I remember the gas masks and the smoke so thick I couldn't see a thing, and I remember being shot.

"When we were in District 13," Rory explains, flipping through the channels, "Gale helped with war strategies. Obviously he was in propaganda, but he worked 3 on explosives and weaponry and strategies. He helped this guy from 3-they picked him out of the arena with Finnick and Katniss, I think."

The news is replaying footage from the explosion last night.

"Snow had a bunch of kids at his mansion to act as a barrier to stop the rebels from killing him. He knew they wouldn't kill kids. They were bombed. A bunch died. 13 sent in medics. Katniss's sister was with them. The bombs went off again. Prim died." There are tears in Rory's eyes. "She was fucking helping them, you know? And she fucking died."

"What does that have to do with Gale?" Evangeline asks quietly.

"Prim burnt to death. There wasn't anything left of her to give back to her mother. We were both thirteen when it happened. It didn't make sense to anyone why a Capitol hovercraft would put Snow in danger. It wasn't a Capitol hovercraft. The rebels took it over. Bombed the kids. It had been one of Gale's strategies. Play with human emotions. He didn't know that the rebels would send their own medics in."

"Why would they kill their own medics?" I demand. I hadn't known most of this-it had all been classified deep in the recesses of Paylor's computers.

"Coin was blackmailing Katniss to be the Mockingjay," Rory says simply. "She wanted Katniss to know she still controlled her."

"He wasn't helping, was he?" I ask harshly.

"No! Of course not!" Rory's voice cracks with emotion. "He loved Prim. We all did." He wipes his eyes. "That's why Katniss killed Coin."

Any information on Coin's death had been far out of my reach, and I'd never had any desire to look for it, anyway. Now I know. I share a glance with Evangeline. I'm an orphan, and as far as I know, an only child. Then I think of Kent and Estella, and how I'd feel if Paylor blew them up, and maybe if Gale was inexplicably a factor in it all. Rory wipes his eyes, sniffling. "You never met her. You don't understand. She-She was a sweetheart. She'd never last a day in the Games."

Faces of the dead flash across the screen from the explosion in 4.

How many Games had I watched, waiting, wanting,_ anticipating_ kids like Prim dying? How many people had I killed in preparation to win the Games? I had been taken out of the Reaping at sixteen, when I became a Peacekeeper, knowing there was no way I could die at the hand of a tribute. There had always been volunteers. I had always been thirsty to watch their blood spill.

None of us says a word after that. Mrs. Hawthorne must be at work, wherever that is, and the kids at school, because the house is empty. Rory goes to the kitchen and eats, then comes back out and says he has to go to his shift at the mine. When he's left, Evangeline says, "He'd probably be a good field operative."

"Too emotional," I acknowledge. "Better as an analyst."

"I'll put in a good word for him at the office," Evangeline says quietly.

We fall silent. With silence comes time to think, and I spiral through a reverie. Kent and Estella. Blood. Sabille and I. Thunder. Gale and Oline. Rain. Maria and I. Evangeline. Gore. Rory. Katniss and Peeta. District 2, the snowcapped mountains and the fire in our veins and the hate in our bones. This is a foreign place.

In District 2, when I'd been training as a Career, Oline had been as well. She had been nothing like she is today. Unsmiling, freckled. Puny. She smiles now. She smiles like she's happy, even after all she's been through.

I'd met Maria through training, too. It had never worked the way it should have with Maria. We were married five months. Sabille and I have been married four years.

I look sideways at Evangeline. Wonder. She has to have some kind of story of her life before the rebellion, of her recruitment, of how she got noticed by District 13. She has to be _someone. _

The newscaster talks about how the Mayor of District 4 is to give a speech on the terrorism and defending himself. Because Paylor's being a bitch and might lose him his job over something out of his control.

It's smart-no, ingenious-that whoever is behind the bombings could live in another district. The bastard would never be suspected.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I want to thank Splashpaw, xSiriusly Insanex, and wehaveaproblem for reviewing the previous chapter. **

**Chapter 5**

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><p><em>"Insane you should be put inside,<em>

_You're a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride._

_Should be made unemployed..."_

_-Death On Two Legs, Queen _

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><p><strong>Gale Hawthorne<strong>

Thom's waiting for me at his house, grinning. "Nice seeing you again," he says.

I smile back. It's not forced, despite how my visit in 12 has been so far. Thom claps me on the shoulder. "Where've you been?" he asks me, looking genuinely curious but welcoming.

"District 2."

Thom nods and asks no more about my lapse from 12. We begin heading away from the Victors' Village, towards the Meadow. "I've got a wife now. We're going to have a baby," he says, looking proud.

"That's awesome," I say, thoughts of Oline returning. God, I miss her. "I've got a girl in 2, but we aren't married."

"I saw you and Rory earlier," Thom says. "Who were those people with you?" We make it to the fallen part of the fence. I remember climbing up its rusty mesh alongside Thom and the other miners, ripping it down, my hands cutting on barb wire as the fires behind us give off the light we need to see. Now it lies on the ground, harmless.

"Just some…" What are they, really? Friends? Coworkers? I'm less sure than I originally thought, even concerning Ezra, who despite our friendship, hides secrets. Then I realize I'm just as guilty as he is on that matter. I don't even know Evangeline, apart from her name. "Just some people." Even if Thom and I have been friends since school and the mines, there are some things I can't tell him now. Especially not about work. I change the subject. "Who's your wife? Do I know her?"

"No," Thom answers. "I met her in 13, after the war ended. She's a refugee from District 8."

We're silent for a long time, following a trail through the woods. Nothing seems to have changed here, at least, since the winters I spent elsewhere.

"I keep my bows out here," Thom says. "In a dead tree. Katniss, Rory, and I used to come out here some, but we haven't went in a long time. Rory works, as you probably already know, and I trade, and Katniss- Well, Katniss is Katniss."

He retrieves a bow and a quiver of arrows from a lightning-blackened tree. "You can get guns in the Hob now, but they're illegal. So are bows, I guess. I keep a gun at home, locked up, but I don't use it hunting. It's too loud. Scares off everything. And if you shoot a rabbit with one, there's not much left to eat."

"They rebuilt the Hob?"

"Yeah. Same place. It's a lot more stable now."

"Town seems to have grown."

Thom nods, but his eyes are somber. "It's been hard," he replies at last.

I nod. It had been, even in 2. When the Nut had been destroyed and everyone in it had been killed-apart from the lucky few, like Ezra-District 2 had went black. Everyone had stayed inside, hiding under their furniture and in cellars in fear of another bombing. And then they organized their own war, turning on the rebels. Lyme had held them off for as long as she could, but she died in a riot. More rebels had come in and finally an agreement had been established. "It's always been hard. At least there's more food now."

Thom regards me with a reproachful look in his eyes. "Is that the way it works in 2, Gale? Why do you think there're all these fields surrounding town? Why do you think the Hob was put back up?"

I stare at him as he goes on. "Paylor says she's dividing food up evenly. Distributing it according to population. You know how much came in last month? As much as we got on Parcel Day. My sister literally had to live off of a loaf of bread for a month. Maybe Paylor hasn't noticed, but we need more than what she's giving us. And she should close the border to 12 until we get food. They're Capitolites living in town here with more food than us."

"Paylor worked in the military before," I point out, a frosty edge to my voice. I'm not really certain why I'm defending her. Don't Ezra and I do nothing but mock her? "She's not used to working with an entire population on all of its needs."

"Gale, she's been in charge for what, six, seven years? She did great work during the rebellion, I'll give her that. I supported her in her presidency. I still do. But she should've learned by now." He skips a rock down the creek.

"Do you work in the mines still?" I ask, thinking it's a good time to change the subject. He seems relieved that I did.

"No. I trade mostly. What brings you back home?" Then he adds awkwardly, "Unless District 2 is your home now."

"No, I miss here," I answer, avoiding his actual question. "Everyone, you know. I miss the old District 12, though. Even the Seam and the mines, you know?"

He looks at me for a long moment, puzzled. "No. There's less chance of me getting black lung now. I don't miss the old stuff. I miss…everyone who didn't stay."

I cringe. _Everyone who didn't stay._ Madge. The baker. Piles of ash that used to be breathing bodies. Me.

"It's nice in District 2," I say as we watch the fish swim downstream. "There are lots of people. I've got a nice job. I've got a nice girl. But I don't like it like I do 12."

"Do you go in the woods there?" Thom asks curiously. "Or are there even woods there?"

"There are woods, but I'm too busy. Different kind of trees, too. More pines and less hardwood."

"Busy? What kind of work do you do?"

"Government," I say evasively. "Security."

He nods again, like it's expected. For the first time I take it in-my friends leading normal lives, without the fear of death constantly hanging over them. Obviously it could happen any time, but they don't expect raids like the ones plaguing District 4…

My heart hardens. _There's no point in that. Death happens. Murder happens. I'm supposed to be stopping it, that's all._

I go back to Rory's house-that's the way I've been looking at it-changed. The woman who I have known and been friends with for years hates me. Even Thom is wary of me. My own mother- I remember the pity in Ezra's voice, and I trudge on. They remember how I destroyed the Nut. They see the people I killed in District 8 armed with my bow. They remember how I stirred up rebellion and how I was bloodied in the Square by Romulus Thread. The day I cut my hands open on the barb wire fence and we ran to the lake. The day we took the Capitol. The day I killed Prim.

I make it to the house and open the door. Ezra is sifting through piles of newspapers. Evangeline sits in front of a small computer.

"Is that legal?" I ask her.

"Who gives a shit?" Ezra answers for her.

I close the door. "Where's Rory?"

"The mines," Evangeline says.

"Mom?"

"Dunno. Work?" Ezra offers.

_Mom doesn't work_. I sit down on the couch across from Evangeline and sigh. "Any leads on Mallory?"

"No. You?"

"Same." I don't tell them that I didn't even mention it to Thom, because I don't know why I didn't, either. "I'm going to call Oline. You guys need to make a call? Tomorrow we can go get guns. Rory says the rebuilt the Hob."

"What's the Hob?" Ezra asks.

"Never mind," I say, stepping into the kitchen. I find the home phone and dial the operator's number.

"Operator," a reedy voice chirps in my ear. No doubt a Capitolite. "Please state the district you are trying to contact."

"I'd like to place a call to District 2."

"All right-y. What's the name?"

"Oline Roberts."

The phone switches, and I'm going through to a call to Oline. It rings for a while. On the fourth she picks up. "Oline Roberts, who is this?"

"Hey Oline. It's me."

"Gale? Where are you?"

"I'm not supposed to say, hon."

"How are things?"

"Okay, I guess," I say. "The weather's all right here. We got here safely." I hate these calls. I can never say where "here" is. I can never affirm nothing other than my own safety.

"There's a cold front rolling in here," Oline says, "according to the weather channel. Whatever a cold front is." She coughs.

"You okay, hon? It sounds like the smoking's getting to you."

"Just a cold," she says. She knows there's nothing else to say but small talk. But I could spend hours on end making small talk with Oline Roberts. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"See you soon," she says. Her voice is little more than a whisper. The receiver barely picks it up.

She disconnects first and I stand against the wall with phone to my ear, wishing to hear her again. But hope is folly in times like these and I hang up so I don't have to talk to the operator again.

Ezra must have come in the kitchen while I was talking to Oline, because now he rummages through the cabinets, probably for something to eat. He pulls a cardboard box out and slides a tube out of it. "Morphine," he tells me. "No offense Gale, but your family is fucked up." He sits at the table and glances at me still standing next to the phone, my hand still touching it, and says, "So how'd your call go?"

"Same as it always does," I say quietly.

"Hmm." He seems disinterested, and I wait for him to make his own call. He always calls home. Then I remember that Sabille is cheating on him (is it cheating as in the present tense or past when she's filing divorce?) and that he won't be making any calls to her to small talk.

"Does it get better?" I ask suddenly. "I mean, does it get better with our jobs and our wives or does it just stay like this?"

"Wives as in plural?" He looks at me with interest in his clear blue eyes. "You and Oline are getting hitched?"

"Not yet," I say hastily. "But I think I might ask her."

"It got better with Sabille," Ezra admits. "The calls were better, she didn't ask me much, we talked, she picked baby names-you know, little stuff. But we still got stuff in. Maria and I didn't really talk much."

I sigh. "Why don't you call Sabille?" I ask. "Try and work things out."

He snorts. "Like _that's_ going to happen. She's stubborn as a jackass. She'll probably let me see the kids every now and then, but she'll have custody. I won't get custody even if I take it to Paylor herself. Too dangerous, with me working at the Agency and all."

I yawn. "So what? You're getting a divorce…again? Why don't you call the kids, then?"

He shrugs. "I'd have to talk to Sabille first."

"Sounds like you're just as stubborn as she is," I remark. "Are you just going to give up on them?"

"No," he says angrily. He glares at me for several seconds before sighing and saying, "So what's this Hob thing?"

"It's where the black market used to be. Peacekeepers burnt it down before the Quell when Thread took over. You could buy poached meat, furs, and liquor there. I'm betting that's where Mom's been getting her morphine. Katniss and I would trade deer, rabbit, and wild dog there and get food and stuff for our families." I think back to my conversation with Thom. "It's how most people in the Seam survived. Rory said they rebuilt it on the old foundation."

"Sounds interesting?" Ezra offers. "I mean, I'm always up for wild dog, but let's be serious. Does this place sell guns?"

"I don't know. It didn't then. It might now. Half the population is former Peacekeepers, so they might've sold their things. They dealt at the Hob before."

"_Peacekeepers _sold at the _black market?_" Ezra shakes his head, incredulous. "We never did anything like that when we were Peacekeepers. You'd get shot if they found out. Probably burn down your house and your parents' house, too."

"Well, yeah, but that was in 2," I remotely point out. "You were the Capitol's lapdogs. Here we starved. So there weren't many other options."

"Were all the other districts like this?" he asks, shaking his head.

"I don't know. I _assume _so, except for maybe the Career districts, and that's probably limited to District 1. 4's a bit poorer than Districts 1 and 2, and 2 is too wild."

"We never sold at the black market in District 2," Ezra retorts. "It was a crime. It wasn't right. It would dishonoring the oath we took."

"Was there even a black market in District 2?"

"We burnt it down," Ezra says. "Someone was arming civilians, we did what had to be done. The only thing we could turn a blind eye to was Career training."

"I think the mine disaster that killed mine and Katniss's fathers was staged by the Capitol or Peacekeepers," I say. "Katniss's dad could've armed the Seam easily. He made bows. Sold at the black market. Everyone knew, Peacekeepers and civilians alike. It would be easy to get the news to the Department of Defense." I had had the theory since the accident, but this was the first time I'd voiced it.

Ezra shrugs. "We just followed orders. If you didn't obey the law, you got what was coming."

"Killing people?" I say angrily. "Following orders and _killing people?"_

"Would you rather looters and killers and criminals to walk free, no punishment, or would you rather criminals as defined by the law get justice? We took an oath, Gale," Ezra tells me sagely. "It wasn't like the Hunger Games or training as a Career. _You_ killed plenty of people following orders."

His words sting, because I'm the biggest hypocrite of all. I killed God knows how many people during the war. Ezra was a Peacekeeper who dragged people out of homes and set them aflame. There's enough blame and condemnation to go around.

"Do you know what it's like to train as a Career?" he suddenly asks me, as with a knife he cleans the grit under his fingernails. "It's hell. It was for me, anyway. I started when I was five, I think, with the weaponry and food and basics. Around twelve it was kill or be killed. They recruited orphans, and there's plenty of them to go around in 2. I was dropped off at about a month old. It wasn't always bad. It was more like games. We used plastic swords. We probably knew what you did at nineteen when we were twelve."

I let him talk, because I know that if I try to stop him, he'll just talk louder and in greater detail than really necessary. Once, at work, he did in a meeting in front of Paylor. He was suspended for a month without pay for it. If he weren't so good at his job, he'd have bene fired. But they need Ezra. He knows it and I know it and Paylor knows it. When he rants, the words spill out and he can't stop. Maybe it helps him with the nightmares.

"When I was fifteen we went on a 'field trip.' They took everyone who was at the top, eligible for the Reaping, volunteer material, out into the woods. Eighty-eight miles out of the nearest village. It was all forest. You couldn't even tell if you were in Panem anymore." He wipes the sweat shining on his forehead off with his sleeve. There were seventeen us. They said whoever was at the spot they dropped us off in three weeks, we could go back to training, and there'd only be one more test to determine if we get to volunteer. It was very organized. Or we could walk eight-eight miles back and quit, no punishment. But we had to walk."

The nightmares are what ended his marriage with Maria. She had them from Career training, too. So did he. Before I moved to 2, I wondered what would drive someone to train to kill people. When I got to 2, it was an easy question to answer.

"So they dumped us by this huge poplar tree. It was enormous. There were names carved in it, everywhere. You could see them all the way up the tree. It was insane. They were the names of all the people who'd died doing what we were doing." A manic laugh gurgles in his throat. This is a day Ezra will shout and spit and rant and curse. I can already tell. "Whenever someone died, they told us to carve their names into the tree. The first night was okay. All seventeen of us. We camped out under the poplar and set up snares out of tree limbs for game and started a fire."

People in District 2 volunteered because it was the only way to escape the quarries and make something of themselves. If you didn't go to training, you couldn't become a Peacekeeper. The Capitol pulled Peacekeepers directly out of Career training. If you didn't go to training, the best you could hope for were school test scores high enough to gain the attention of the Peacekeeper recruiting officers. And being a Peacekeeper meant everything in District 2.

"All of us went hungry the first three days," Ezra says, "so you don't you goddamn say I don't know what hunger's like. The fourth day me and my friends Ziggy and Giana made a bow. We found some feathers and made arrows you'd scoff at, but they worked. We took down a few rabbits and since there wasn't much meat on them, we split it between the three of us. Then a sonofabitch finds out from Giana-he hit her-, and Ziggy went back to camp ahead of me, and the guy's pissed. So as soon as Ziggy comes into the camp and sits down at the fire, the bastard stabs him. I was scared. I wasn't like I am now. I was scrawny as hell. He knew that if he was one of the only ones to come back, he could volunteer. But I guess he didn't know I was with Ziggy, because he didn't touch me. Ziggy died that night."

I glance up and see that Evangeline has come in. She stands in the doorway, arms crossed. She'd come in quietly, because I hadn't heard her. Neither had Ezra, or at least, he'd given no sign of hearing her.

"We caught a fox in a snare the next day and split it between the rest of us. Two got sick from the meat-salmonella or something like that-and got dehydrated. They died a few days later. Fourteen of us left with two weeks."

Evangeline meets my eyes over Ezra's head. I drop my gaze.

"The next day Marie-Maria's twin sister-walks right into a snare. Easy to do. It snapped her neck. She died instantly. Thirteen left, and we're dropping like flies. Few days later, Oline and I-yeah Gale, Oline was there-anyway, we went hunting. She got attacked by a fucking bear. Got badly injured, infection, the nightmare of anyone in the Games. Bet you didn't know that, did you?"

I shake my head. The only thing Oline ever says about her training was that her father oversaw it, and that that had been where she'd met Ezra and Maria.

"I helped her. They didn't help her. _I _did. _I _gave her my food. _I _starved. I didn't eat anything until we got back to the training center. Few days later a bunch of guys ganged up on a girl. She was seventeen, one of the older ones. But no matter who you are, you want someone with you who you can trust when you're out hunting. They-They raped her. Slit her throat. These were _teenagers. _The youngest was fifteen and the oldest was eighteen. I saw them burying her, and I had a knife on me. I killed two of them." He exhales a shaky breath. "You probably don't like listening to me much, do you?"

"Not really," I admit.

Ezra shrugs. "That's why I accepted the Peacekeeper position. There were five of us who made it back to training. I _knew _I could've volunteered. I _know _I would've won, too. But I got the chance to leave. They wanted me, and I didn't want to kill in cold blood. So I left."

"So you could take this job, too," Evangeline says bitterly.

"It's not cold blood," Ezra snaps. "This is justice."

"Were you doing justice as a Peacekeeper? These people are no different than any one of us!" she retorts, her voice rising.

Ezra slams a fist onto the table. "You weren't there! You don't know a damn thing!"

"What I know is that you have this job to _kill people_!"

"Shut your mouth, Moffat!" he shouts, and even I flinch. "You weren't there! You don't know what it was like! Stop pretending that you do, because I swear to God you don't!" He hurls the glass sitting in front of him across the room. It collides with the wall and shatters. Evangeline stares at him, her eyes widening with alarm as he walks over to her. She backs up against the wall and he continues, his fists clenched at his sides. He's maybe an inch away from her, and even though I know he won't hurt her, I feel nervousness rise in my chest. Ezra is drunk on adrenaline and history.

"You don't know shit," he whispers harshly. "Stop thinking you know why I'm like this. You sure as hell don't." He raises his voice. "You don't know a goddamn thing!"

I stand up. "Ezra, step off."

"Shut up, Gale!"

"Ezra-"

"I said _shut the fuck up!" _

In that very instant Rory steps inside. He must have just finished working, because his clothes are sooty and his face is streaked with ash. He takes in the scene and strides over to Ezra. He doesn't say a word, but pulls Ezra away from Evangeline and hits him square in the jaw.

Ezra glares at him for the longest time, his face swelling from where Rory had hit him. "Next time someone tells you to step off, step off," Rory snarls. Ezra lowers his eyes and walks out of the kitchen. I hear the front door slam. Evangeline glares at us through scrutinizing eyes, almost if daring us to say something. I'm not exactly certain why. She slips down the hall. I hear her footsteps heading up the stairs.

Rory turns to me. "Is he always like that?" he demands.

"No. Just don't bring up his childhood. It's not a pretty one. He only does that because…of what he saw."

"That's no excuse," Rory says, curling his lip in disgust.

"But it's an excuse for Haymitch's drunkenness or Johanna's morphling addictions?" I counter.

"Why are you defending him?" Rory snaps, standing up. He heads over to the counter where the coffeepot is. "He's a Peacekeeper. He killed innocent people, Gale, and the only reason he's alive now and works at the Agency is _because _he killed so many people as a Peacekeeper."

"Have some sympathy," I say coolly. "His wife just left him, and she's pregnant with his kid."

"You would've still blown up the Nut if he were in it, and if you knew him," Rory says stubbornly. "If you had to do it again, you'd still do it."

There's plenty of truth to Rory's words. "Thanks for coming in when you did," I mutter.

"Someone had to do something," he says casually. "I don't think you would have." I bite my tongue to stop myself from spewing profanities. Rory goes on as he pours himself coffee. "I just came in when I heard yelling. So is he…bipolar?"

"Paylor's guys diagnosed him with sociopathy and manic depression."

"He's a _sociopath _and they let him work for the government?" Rory asks, incredulous.

"He's good."

"Hmm."

"Why are you so cynical?"

"He just assaulted someone in our kitchen." Rory looks at me. "Seriously, Gale. I don't care if he's good at his job. I really don't. He fights with his own team and scares the shit out of people. Just know that if he pulls _that _again, I swear I will kill him. Just remember that."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: So... please review. I really want to thank Truenorth12, wehaveaproblem, xSiriusly Insanex, and Splashpaw for reviewing the last chapter.**

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><p><em>"And the message coming from my eyes<em>

_Says leave it alone._

_Don't want to hear about it. _

_Every single one's got a story to tell,_

_Everyone knows about it._

_From the Queen of England to the hounds of hell."_

_-Seven Nation Army, The White Stripes_

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><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

**Evangeline Moffat**

The tread on the boots is thick, because Rory had told us we might be in the woods some today. I lace them and zip up my jacket before grabbing the folder on the table.

_While Head of the Department of Defense in the Capitol, Mallory targeted Sector 10 of District 6. Sector 10 is the most populous area of the district, and an estimate of two thousand-three hundred people were killed in raids after a Peacekeeper was killed in a riot the day before._

Sector 10. Factories and sweatshops had rimmed the corners of the precinct, and above them had been the flats and abodes shooting upwards to the sky. David had worked in Sector 10.

I don't care, I tell myself. I tell myself that every day, but it never works.

Gale, Rory, and Ezra wait for me outside on the steps of the house.

_Smoke rises through the air. I can see the flames lapping at the skyline from across the district. "David!" I scream. "David!" People run past me. Shrieks and yells split the atmosphere, and above a third plane flies. Instantaneously hundreds of people race to the sides of the street to the buildings. A group of teenage boys carry another who was bleeding heavily from where his eye should be._

_ I wait as long as I can at the train station, waiting for him. Then they tell me that the train is about to leave, and a woman with her own child offers to take Imala, but I shake my head and enter the train. I'll be better without him, maybe. _

_It doesn't work. _

Ezra looks different than he had yesterday, when his eyes had been crazed and his face red, his hands clenched threateningly at his sides. Now he looks like he had when I had first met him on the train. Young, military, handsome, sane. I don't know who he was yesterday. A monster.

_Sector 10 was nearly completely destroyed, and many of the deaths are attributed from the lack of exits in factories. Atlas Wellwood, who had been fifteen at the time, was working on a train factory line when the raids began. Atlas claims that the youngest person working in the factory was seven years old. Mallory moved to District 6 and married Laurel Hayes, the CEO of Hayes Transportation, the factory employing Wellwood and an estimate of six hundred other youths. Atlas, who lost an eye and leg in the raids, said that the reason he and many others could not escape Hayes's factory was due to the fact that all exits were blocked off. Hayes denied all allegations. A Capitol attorney who previously successfully defended Finnick Odair when he killed a fifty-seven year old Peacekeeper in a District 4 brothel defended Hayes. No evidence could discern that Hayes had known of the raid ahead of time and had provided help to Peacekeepers._

When I come outside, folder in hand, Rory nods impatiently. "Now we can go. Do you want to stop by Katniss's and have her show you around the woods? I have to work today."

"I know the woods," Gale retorts impatiently.

"It's been almost seven years since you've been here," Rory says coolly.

Gale shrugs. Ezra fidgets impatiently. "Why doesn't Gale just lead the way?" He angles his head in my direction, surveying the sun for the time. I catch a sight of the bruise along his jaw.

"Gale might not know the woods as well as he did," Rory flashes back. For some reason he has a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand, and it looks as if it could burst open at any second, the way he's holding it.

"How hard can it be? We'll get guns at the Hob and go hike around. Or are we even going into the woods today or are we talking to the locals?"

"Talking to locals," I say, speaking up for the first time. "That way we'll know if Mallory's even here."

Rory looks at me skeptically and snorts. "Fine. Do you remember where the Hob was, Gale? I'm going to see Eileen and then work."

"Eileen?" Gale asks.

"My girlfriend. She sells liquor at the Hob with Ripper."

"How _is _Ripper?"

The brothers take the lead, gossiping, while Ezra and I fall back. The roads are cracked and potholed. They can't have been paved in the last few decades. But then, I've only seen two cars since we'd arrived. We pass an enormous house. It must be five stories, bigger than even the houses we'd seen in the Victors' Village. "What's that?" Gale asks, jerking his head toward to it.

"Mayor Meav lives there," Rory says. "Meav and his family."

Gale goes quiet.

"Does Meav know about Mallory?" Rory asks us.

"Of course," Ezra answers. I had met Thales Meav in District 13. He had been one of Paylor's main supporters there and acted as her mouthpiece with President Coin when Paylor needed supplies or soldiers sent in to 8. Meav had been polite and kind. He had offered condolences for David and Imala.

It takes about fifteen minutes to get to town from Rory's house. We pass the school, which is only one story. Rory says that there are only two hundred students in it, and the majority aren't native. Ezra clears his throat. "Sorry about yesterday," he says awkwardly.

_"I'm sorry," David sobs. My head reels from the blow, and I press a hand to the weal on my cheek. _

"It's okay," I say.

_"Stay away from me!" _

"It's not," Ezra says awkwardly.

Rory and Gale lead us out of town and on a newly-paved road that leads through the woods in the direction of the mines and past a slag heap. We leave the road and follow a rusty fence before coming to two buildings. The larger of the two is made of cement. The other looks like a barn, and the stench of manure and gasoline hangs in the air. Rory leads us to the barn.

It's nothing like I expected, but then again, I've never been in a barn. Chickens strut around, clucking. An old man chases a goat as it dashes to the open door. Rory grabs it by the hind legs and drags it back to the elderly man, who nods appreciatively. There were even a few cows in pins, wire boxes of rabbits, ducks, pigs, and a few sheep and their lambs. There were dogs and cats and their litters. Everyone was shouting prices.

"This is nothing like it was," Gale says.

"When farms were made legal everywhere, with no paperwork involved, people started selling. This part of the Hob is, by all standards, legal." Rory pushes through throngs of people betting on a large hog to a stall containing a lone donkey. An unkempt man sits on the wooden railing, looking hungover, and a bottle of whiskey in one hand. Rory hands him the coffee.

"Haymitch," Rory acknowledges. Now I recognize him. He looks slightly different than he had when he'd been on television-more disheveled, overweight, and sloppier-but it was definitely him. He takes the coffee and takes a large gulp.

"What're you doing here?"

"Haymitch? Do you remember me? It's Gale. Can we talk to you somewhere less noisy?"

"Gale, huh. I haven't seen you in years." He scratches his ear. "Less noisy, huh. Follow me." The drunkard leads the way through the smelly barn to an empty stall, the kind you would keep horses in. We go in, and in the back of the stall, there's a door. He unlocks it and gestures for us to enter. We do. Then we're in a poorly lit, small room that smelled very faintly of animal feces, but I figure that the scent just drifted from the rest of the barn. There was a counter that held a coffee maker, a table, and three chairs. Gale and Rory sit down in two of the chairs, leaving the third for Haymitch, who had already downed the coffee and was fixing more. His eyes already seem brighter. "What was it you wanted to tell me?"

"Haymitch, we work for Paylor," Gale begins, and Haymitch's eyes spike with surprise.

"I didn't do what you're asking about," he mutters, and I exchange an amused look with Ezra.

Gale shakes his head. "Haymitch, we want to know if you've seen a man. Probably frequented the Hob." I take the grainy mugshot from the folder and slide it onto the table in front of him. He stared at it, frowning, stroking the small patch of stubble growing on his chin. He sighed, shook his head, and poured another cup of coffee.

"You don't know him?" There's obvious disappointment in Gale's voice.

"I know him. Can't believe the bastard would do something that's enough to bring you guys here, is all. I mean, everyone's a criminal." He gestures around as if to make his point. "Hell, you're a criminal, aren't you, Gale?"

"What did he do?" Gale presses, ignoring his last comment.

"Why should I tell you? I know my rights. I don't have to tell you a thing."

"Haymitch, you work at an illegal black market. I could easily have this place shut down, as much as I would hate to have to do that. I know how many people this place employed before." Gale pauses. "But if it needs to be done, we will. I think we can make a deal."

"Yeah? Well, fuck you, too."

Ezra glances at me and sort of smiles. Rory, however, isn't amused. "Haymitch, we don't have time for this."

"This isn't even your case, Rory, so shut up," Ezra cuts in, his voice biting. "It's Gale's, and Evangeline's, and mine, as much as you hate me. You don't even work with us, so quit trying to take over. Technically, you don't even have the authority to be here."

"So now you're on their side?" he ripostes.

I freeze and look at Gale. He looks furious. Haymitch seems to be enjoying it. Ezra's face is white and his hands were clenched in fists. "_Rory," _Gale barks. "Get out. Now."

He looks like he might protest, but must think better of it. When he's gone, Gale turns to glare at Ezra. "You had to settle that now, did you?"

"Better now than later," Ezra says smoothly. Haymitch guffaws. I pull out another photograph to show Haymitch.

"So you're blackmailing me?" Haymitch questions. "Sorry, but I don't care enough about this place to splurge the details on him."

Ezra reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a long knife. He stabs it into the wooden table. Haymitch laughs. It sounds more like a cackle. He unzips his own jacket and opens it, revealing a pistol. He shakes his head and zips his jacket up again, returning to the photograph. "That's definitely him," Haymitch murmurs.

"Who?"

He sighs. "Let me get this straight. If I don't tell you, you'll shut this place down. If I do tell you, you'll agree to let a black market still exist?" It was pretty dumb, but I know that things like this happen pretty commonly with the Agency, because there are no signed contracts, only the "good" word of agents.

"Basically," Ezra answers.

"We call him Mack. He comes in every once in a while. Lives somewhere nearby, I think. He goes to the other building more often. Been here a few months, I think. What'd he do?"

I don't answer, but pick up the photographs and return them to the folder. "Where does Mack live?"

"Around," Haymitch says stubbornly.

"You don't know, do you?" Gale asks, exasperated.

"Nope."

"Does anyone else know Mack?" Ezra asks.

"Hell, everyone knows Mack. He's a nice guy. Good customer in everything. He bought a dog and a cat off of me last month. He must have a house nearby. He gets liquor off Ripper and food from Greasy Sae and meat from Ripper and guns-"

"He buys guns?"

"Who doesn't?" Haymitch replies, indifferent.

"Who sells?"

"Who doesn't?" Haymitch repeats, a gloating note to his voice now.

_This isn't getting us anywhere. _We already have what we need. Mack. Find people and see if they know where he stays. Take him into custody. Call Paylor. Get an armored train or hovercraft down here to pick him up. Deliver him to Headquarters. Testify at the trial. This was going to be easier than I'd originally entertained.

"Haymitch," Ezra says, with an obvious attempt to control his patience, "How well do you know Mack?"

"He's quiet. I mean, he sees me, he says hi. He buys off of me and Goat Man in here, we give him a good bargain because he's nice enough. Nicer than you and Katniss ever were, anyway," Haymitch adds to Gale. "You two were tough to bargain with. But Mack doesn't argue. That's how I know he's not from around here."

_He doesn't argue because he's trying not to draw attention to himself. _"Does he have any friends?"

"How would I know?"

"Where do you think he's from?" I prompt.

"North, I'd say," he says thoughtfully. "He's got a bit of a weird accent, and he does everything too fast, like eating, walking, selling, and buying." He pours another coffee, and I can tell that he's sobered up enough to know what he's talking about.

"Thank you," I tell him. "That's all we need to know at the moment." We leave the barn. Five minutes later, we find ourselves in the other half of the Hob, where Rory is.

The other building is cleaner, made out of wood. This one has an actual concrete floor, though. There are places to sell. It looks like a market. Maybe twenty people are looking at things, and there are just as many stalls. The most popular seems to be where an older woman sits with several children as she stirred a pot of some kind of stew. She has about ten cracked bowls and old iron spoons for people to eat out of. Gale makes a beeline towards her, and stops in front of her. She smiles a toothy grin. "Gale," she says, and they hug. Ezra and I hang back.

"It's so good to see you!" The woman pulls back and stares at him appraisingly. "You've changed so much since the last time I'd seen you." She scoops some of the stew in a ladle and pours it into a bowl. "I hope you like my stew. I've got a wider variety of meat now," she adds with a wink.

Gale begins to eat quickly, like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. He waves us over. "Elise, Trenton, meet Greasy Sae." The fact that he switched to our aliases only meant one thing: _This place is not secure. _She wrings our hands and beams.

"What've you been up to, Gale?" she asks, stirring the pot. She asks Ezra and I if we want to eat, and I decline on the offer, but Ezra accepts. Rory drifts over to where a one-armed woman and a younger were selling bottles of spirits.

"I've been in the other districts lately," Gale says vaguely. "Just landed here. I'll be here a month or so, checking on Mom and the kids."

For the first time Greasy Sae's smile falters, and she lowers her voice. "She's been buying off Ripper, and morphling from another vendor."

"I know," Gale says with a sigh. Then he brightens a bit. "Town's a lot bigger, and your grandkids are getting big." He ruffles a boy's hair, who immediately tries to swat at him.

She smiles again. "I've got more of them, too. One's due in a few months." Gale finishes the soup and hands the bowl and spoon back. He reaches into his pocket for money to pay her, but she says quickly, "No, no! Free of charge for you, Gale, and your friends."

"Take it as a tip," Gale says.

Ezra hands her the bowl back. "Actually, there's something we need to talk to you about," Gale continues. "Can we go somewhere more privately?"

Greasy Sae hesitates and turns to her grandchildren. "Stay here, watch the stand. Make sure everyone returns the spoons," she adds, and in one swift motion, she snatches the spoon out of Ezra's hand, shaking her fist in mock anger. "People always forget to return them." Ezra blushes. The old woman leads us outside to where another door is. She opens it, revealing a large room. "This is where we store most of the guns and liquor when we close for the day," she explains. She drags a table from where it had been hidden behind a heap of shipping crates. The woman has spunk. She pulls up a few folding metal chairs for us to sit at.

"So what are you here for?" she asks, her eyes gleaming with intelligence. I open up the folder and slide the shot across the table. She peers at it, adjusting her glasses, muttering under her breath. She hands it back.

"This man is why we're here," Ezra says. "He's wanted for crimes in District 6 and suspected of breaching national security.

"Him? You sure you've got the right man?" She fixes us all with a steely glare.

"He's our main suspect," Gale says.

She shakes her head. "He wouldn't hurt a fly."

_He might not hurt a fly, but he killed over forty people. _Gale takes control again. "We only want to talk with him, ask him a few questions. We'll detain him and he'll be transported to District 2, where he'll receive a fair trial." Which is bullshit, and Gale knows it. More likely, we'll have to shoot him on the spot. But it's obvious that Greasy Sae knows Garrus Mallory well.

It doesn't take long for her to begin to talk about him, which is surprising. Gale must've been a loyal customer before the war, for her to be so open. "Mack blew into town in August. He's quiet. Doesn't cause anyone any trouble. He's very shy, but he's a good customer. Came in every day last month. Kept me in business."

I exchange a glance with Gale. Mallory was here recently. Half a week ago, if Greasy Sae's story is reliable enough. "When was the last time he was here?"

"Few days ago, maybe. He had a dog with him. Little ol' thing, but he said that he'll get real big soon. He bought paraffin and string. We're cheaper than the stores in town. He had some soup, too, like he always does.

"Is there anything he looks at every time he's in?"

"Guns." She spits the word out instantly, as if she hates it. "He bought a shotgun a few weeks ago. Didn't think much of it. Everyone owns a gun now. Can't tell when you'll get broke into, or killed, or anything, and ya need protection now. Most people come in here for guns. Or drugs."

"Does Mack have any friends?"

"None he comes with, but he mentions them every once in a while. Like, 'I gotta friend who makes soup like this' or 'I had a gun like this, but I sold it to my friend cheap.'" She looks visibly perplexed. I glance at Gale. Maybe no organization, from the sounds of it. Maybe we have the wrong man.

But a man as smart as Garrus Mallory knows how to do things like this. He knows how to infiltrate a district.

"So do you know where he lives?"

"He leases off of people. Said something about Earl and Leevy Haddix, but when I mentioned it to Dusty she said that he'd moved out."

"Leevy? Leevy, from the Seam?" Gale sounds surprised. "Where do they live?"

"A few miles from here, on the edge of the fence. Between the Seam and town."

"Thanks, Greasy Sae," Gale says. "You're a lot more help than Haymitch was."

As we help her put the table and chairs back in place, she says, "Don't hurt him if you don't have to. He's a good customer." She heads over to her table and says loudly to her grandchildren, "Where'd all the spoons go?"

Rory drifts over from the liquor stand. "Do you need to talk to Ripper?"

"No. We need to see Earl and Leevy Haddix."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I thought Katniss was going to be in this chapter, but according to my notes that's Chapter 9. Sorry. There's also quite a bit of strong language in this chapter, so when Ezra's about to make a phone call, you can skip past it, if you want. You have been warned. This is mainly a filler, but I guess it's the very, very, very beginning of romance (?).**

**carriedaway88-I love your pen name, first off. (Does your first name happen to be Carrie, because that would be SO cool.) I was afraid I wasn't going to make Haymitch or any of the other locals realistic, so I'm glad you thought he was the same. Having lived in Appalachia (West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, etc.; where District 12 is) for my entire life, I guess I know the lingo well. **

**xSiriusly Insanex-Thanks! There ARE a lot of backstories, aren't there? Sorry about that, I've been watching way too much James Bond and Bourne. But thanks again! Also, Seven Nation Army is the best song ever, thanks! **

**Wehaveaproblem-Thanks! I guess this is a pretty intricate story (I watch too many Bourne movies). There's more Haymitch later on, being difficult (lol) and I'm sorry I told you Katniss is in this chapter! According to my notes she's in chapter 9, but I think I might change some stuff, and she *might* be in the next chapter.**

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><p><em>"I am on the fence about nearly everything I've seen,<em>

_And I have felt the fire be put out by too much gasoline._

_And we're all strangers passing through a place and time, an afternoon._

_Life is but a vision in a window that we're peeking through._

_A helpless conversation with a man who says he cares a lot,_

_It's a passive confrontation about who might throw a punch or not._

_We are all transgressors, we're all sinners, we're all astronauts._

_So if you're beating death then raise your hand but shut up if you're not."_

_-Difference Maker, Needtobreathe_

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><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

**Ezra Gardner**

Gale's kid brother leaves for work as we leave the Hob. Thank God. The guy's on my last nerve. Maybe if he knew the severity of what I'd seen before the war, and as a Peacekeeper, he'd understand. Maybe if he knew my work, he'd understand. But since the son of a bitch doesn't-he'd only be maybe fourteen when the war started-, I figure it won't be long until he loses a few teeth.

We mill around the Hob a while longer, so we don't appear as suspicious. Evangeline buys a random knickknack from someone's pile of trash. It's a gold pin with pearls. It looks like the kind of thing I'd buy Sabille and she'd throw away. But things are different in District 2. We could afford to be wasteful there.

I peer around at some of the other stalls, not quite certain what I was supposed to be looking for, or in some cases, at. It looks like a regular market, except smaller, and you can't buy firearms in a typical public market. There are guns, rusty bits of machinery, knives, food, clothes, books, and services. There are service adverts hanging on the walls, and some of the more popular ones had people to represent them. Plumbing, cleaning, cooking, seamstress, catering, carpentering, paving, prostitution, tutoring, hunting, lumber. An unshaven man sits on a wooden stool, cleaning his fingernails with a knife blade, a rifle propped against the wall behind him. Nearby was a woman, maybe thirty, whose skin seemed to sag slightly. She wore a shirt that looked like a button could pop and turn the Hob into a striptease. When I walk by, she bats her eyelashes at me, but her eyes look haunted. One of the whores, undoubtedly looking for a quick way to make money for drugs. I walk past her to look at a bulletin. I catch sight of the heading and rip it down.

* * *

><p><em>Cleaning-Cooking-Laundry-Seamstress<em>

_Hazelle Hawthorne_

_At Hob Wednesdays, 7 AM to 2 PM._

* * *

><p>Below that was a phone number. I fold it and cram it into my pocket. If there's one thing that family doesn't need, it's definitely a mother who only works to throw the money into addiction, a bag full of holes.<p>

Gale claps a hand on my shoulder, and I nearly jump. "You ready to go?" he asks. I nod and tap Evangeline on the shoulder. She's studying something on the other side of the aisle. We head outside, and the cold air hits my face, momentarily taking my breath away.

"There'll be snow tonight," Evangeline says. Gale's walking far ahead of us, out of earshot.

"What makes you say that?" I ask.

"It's always like this in 6 before a storm," Evangeline explains. "And if it storms in this temperature, it'll snow."

I look ahead at Gale. "I really am sorry about yesterday," I say, not looking at her.

"It was nothing new."

I wonder what she means by that, like it was sort of predictable that I would blow up, or that she'd gotten yelled at like that plenty before. I glance sideways at her, but she's looking up at the swirling, rumbling clouds. "I told you there'd be a storm. It looks like it'll start in an hour or so, at that rate." She raises her voice. "Gale, it looks like a blizzard's going to blow in. We'll get lost trying to find their house, and if Mallory's there, it'll be impossible to have an advantage from the outside."

Reluctantly Gale changes our direction and begins to traipse in the direction of his family's house. I raise an eyebrow at Evangeline, but she only shrugs. Gale's awfully hell-bent on getting this over with. He's unlocking the door to the house when the first flakes begin to fall. Evangeline gives me a pointed look and we head inside.

The house is cold. I can see my breath. No one's home. I go back outside and find where someone-probably Rory or Vick-had split wood. I grab as much of the stuff I can carry and take it back inside. Evangeline opens the door for me. I put the wood in the hearth and find a box of matches and old newspapers in a drawer, and soon stoke a fire. Gale watches, interested. "I didn't know you had a fireplace, Ezra."

"Yeah, well your brother's not the only one who knows how to light a fire," I retort, bad-tempered. Gale visibly winces.

"Sorry about him. He's kind of arrogant. I think he got it from me."

"Kind of?" I echo disdainfully. "And I don't think you can pass on arrogance, considering you're his brother, not his dad." What are we talking about? Self-importance isn't even hereditary.

"Yeah, well, when he saw how you were acting, he must've gotten jealous."

"Jealous, my ass," I say, and I see Evangeline smile. I make it my goal to make her smile more, if it's the only thing I accomplish in three months trapped in District 12. "Where's the phone?" I ask. "I want to call Sabille."

Instantly Gale seems to harden and his expression becomes one of seriousness. "In the kitchen. I'm gonna go out and split wood. I'll be back in an hour."

"An hour? To split wood? There's plenty out there," Evangeline points out.

"I need to keep occupied," Gale says simply, shutting the door behind him. I open the door to the kitchen and shut it, so Evangeline won't overhear as much of what I suspect to be a very heated argument. I dial the operator's number.

"Operator," she says.

"I need to place a call to my unfaithful wife," I say, and the operator almost laughs. I can hear it. She sucks in air and almost chuckles, but she ends it with a strangled cough. Must be a smoker. Lack of oxygen can do that to smokers. Or anyone, really.

"What district?"

"2."

"What's her name?"

"Sabille Gardner."

Now it's ringing on the other end. I tap my foot nervously. When it switches over to the answering machine, just as I was about to hang up, it picks up. "Sabille Garder."

"Sabille? It's me. Ezra." Which is dumb, because after four years of marriage, she can probably recognize my voice over the phone.

There's no answer on her end, but she hadn't hung up. Maybe she'd just left the phone off the hook and walked away.

"I just wanted to know how the kids are."

"Kent and Estella are doing fine." She barks back the response.

"Sabille?"

"What?" I can almost feel the anger radiating off of her through the receiver. It rolls in waves.

"Are you leaving me?"

"Yes, okay! Yes, Ezra, I'm leaving you! And d'you know why? It's because you're a self-righteous, arrogant jacka-"

I hang up and slouch against the wall. Then, wearily I sigh and pick the phone back up.

"Operator? I would like to call my adulteress back. Do you still have her number?"

She picks up this time on the second ring. "Ezra, you son of a bit-"

"How often will I get to see them?" I interrupt.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Kent and Estella."

"Why the fuck should I let them see you?" There's a hysterical note to her voice.

"They're my kids too, dammit!"

"Then why don't you act like it?"

"Put Kent on."

No answer.

"_Let me talk to my son_."

"Why should I?! He barely even knows you're his father! You're never here!"

"_Put my son on the fucking line!_"

The phone on the other end is jostled around, and static fills my ear. "He's not here."

"Why not?"

"He's at my mom's with Estella. He's only three. What did you think?"

"I thought that if they mean enough to you that you won't let them see me that they'd be with you. That's what I thought."

"I'm with Herod," she says abruptly.

"Well, fuck you." I slam the phone on the receiver. It almost breaks. I instantly want to swipe it back up and call her, apologize and tell her how much I love her and the kids. But that won't. I know it won't. I know Sabille. I sit down at the table and put my hand on my forehead. It's been a stressful week.

Evangeline comes in maybe fifteen minutes later, while I'm still fuming. She'd definitely heard my half of that. She goes to the coffee maker and starts making the stuff. A few minutes later she pours herself one and sits down across from me.

"I had a husband," she says quietly. I almost curse at her, but since I'd already done that in the past twenty-four hours, I restrain myself.

"He died in the war. My daughter, too. I was pregnant then, and I miscarried. He wasn't a good husband. He hit me. But I loved him."

I don't say anything, because there's not a lot you can really say in response to that. She keeps going. "There was a bombing, right above his factory. We tried to get out of the city. They said there were hovercrafts coming to take us to 13. Everyone was standing on top of a building, and a bomb went off below. Killed everyone. The rebel hovercraft never even came. They were being lured in. My daughter and I made it to the train station. We got on a train the rebels took over, and we were halfway to 13 when we were bombed."

"It was hard," I agree, "on all of us. I was with the Capitol, because I worked for them then. They blew up the Nut, which was where the Capitol's defense was stationed. I was there, inside. Not many of us made it out, and a lot of the ones that did got shot. I did, twice. In the shoulder, and then in my abdomen. I lost a kidney. It was Gale's plan that killed us."

"Then why are you friends with him?"

"I worked for the Capitol because they paid well, that's all. And I work for Paylor because she pays me well, that's all. There's nothing personal about it. I'm a mercenary, I guess."

"I don't think that's true," she says. "You were a Peacekeeper, you work for the Agency because you love it. You don't fit in with normal life. I know, because after the bombs, that's why I joined."

Hadn't that been why Maria left me?

She brings her cup to her lips and tips it. Coffee is what I want, but I've already had so much today that I doubt I'll be able to sleep a wink tonight.

"When do Gale's siblings get home?"

"I don't know," I answer. "Soon."

"It's noon."

"Well, sooner than they would've fifteen minutes ago."

"True." She wears the pin she'd bought at the Hob. "How does his mother keep all this up? She's an alcoholic. She probably doesn't even have a job, and I doubt Rory's miner salary can pay the taxes on a house like this."

I show her the paper I'd gotten from the Hob and flatten it out on the table. She reads it and looks at me, skeptic.

"Why does it even matter?" I ask.

"I don't know, but I live by myself in the cheapest part of 6, and I can barely pay for my apartment, even with the money we make."

I find that slightly surprising, because Sabille doesn't work at all and with the money I make, we can afford plenty of luxuries. Maybe they're paid less in 6, or the cost of living's higher there. None of those possibilities make much sense, so I don't voice either of them. Instead I say, "This is the first time I've been in 12. I was stationed in 5 as a Peacekeeper, and then they brought me back to 2."

"I've been here once before," she says. "For business, but it was a lot smaller then."

"Three months is too long to be away from home," I sigh. "My wife will be about to have a baby by then."

"Congratulations," she says.

"I guess. She's my ex-wife now, I guess." Which is probably the worst thing to say in a conversation.

"Do you think Mallory's guilty?" she bursts out suddenly, as if the question had been bothering her.

I hesitate. "Yes," I say finally. "He's our main suspect."

"But it doesn't sound like he's part of any organization. I mean, if a guy as dangerous as him would know that we're after him. He'd have a group around him, for protection."

"The chances are still high," I point out. "He could be trying not to draw attention to himself."

She shrugs but doesn't seem convinced.

Gale comes in several minutes later, sweaty, with another load of wood in his arms. I go upstairs to think on the case some more. But the more I try, the more I find myself thinking of Evangeline Moffat, with her asshole dead husband and how clearly she thinks.


End file.
